Eastern Bay Life photographer Louis Klaassen left last month on his first overseas trip. His annual leave was scheduled for four weeks and the purpose of the trip was to take part in a Catholic week-long festival that culminated in World Youth Day.
He travelled with a group of people that included representatives from the Waikato and Christchurch Catholic dioceses. And before heading to Poland, where the festival was to be held, the group took some time out to check out Italy, Rome and Paris.
However Louis says the festival, held in Krakow from July 25 to 31, was always going to be the highlight – particularly the Saturday night.
Before leaving, he found out he had been selected to be among those on the podium with Pope Francis during the Saturday night vigil mass.
World Youth Week takes place every second year and is aimed at promoting the Catholic faith among young adults. This year it was expected that more than two million people, aged between 16 and 35, would attend.
And on the Saturday night, as he sat on the podium only mere metres away from the pope Louis says he gained some insight into just how many people were at the event.
As he looked out the candles were flickering as far as he could see, and that wasn’t even taking into consideration those that were behind the stage.
“In 1979 Pope John Paul II came to Poland and big crowds went along and chanted that they wanted God.
“This was at the time of communism and now, after the downfall of communism in Poland, two million Catholics were back at the same place wanting the same thing. It was really cool,” he says.
But it wasn’t the large number of people that changed Louis, it was seeing Pope Francis pray. While he had worn an All Blacks jersey loaned to him by a generous colleague, Louis says it was such a rush making his way onto the podium that Saturday night, he hadn’t even thought much about what it was going to be like when he was up close with the pope.
“I don’t know how many popular celebrities would be able to get two million people to come and watch them.
“There was something about him, he’s got amazing aura or something because I was looking at him and he was so peaceful and serene. You could really see that he loved communicating with God. It was quite moving watching the pope pray. It was quite an emotional time up there.
“Being up there, watching him pray, gave me time to think. It made me realise that we spend so much time focusing on the stuff that’s not important. Identify what is important in life and then focus on that.”
Later that night, Louis joined more than two million other people to camp out together in the open – sleeping between a hairy man and a nun, who snored.
His trip also involved staying with host families in Poland, a visit to Auschwitz and other key European sites such as Lourdes and the birth place of Francis of Assisi.
