On Sunday, 31st July, in a moving ceremony at St Margaret's Cathedral, Ayr, the 43 World Youth Day pilgrims from Galloway Diocese celebrated their Catholic faith and were blessed by Bishop Cunningham in preparation for their pilgrimage.

World Youth Day is a festival of Catholic faith for young people who are called from across the world, to gather around the Pope in an international location every two or three years. This year World Youth Day takes place in Madrid, Spain.

Between 1.5 and 2 million young pilgrims are expected to gather in Madrid during the World Youth Day week from 16th-21st August.

In Madrid, the pilgrims will take part in workshops led by English-speaking Bishops, and animated by other young people, to help them deepen their knowledge and understanding of faith.

They will get to meet and know young people of faith from all over the world. There will be great gatherings for prayer, a festival of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Stations of the Cross, music concerts, all culminating in the Saturday evening Prayer Vigil with the Holy Father at Cuatro Vientos airfield. After an overnight camping stay, the Holy Father will return on Sunday morning for the celebration of the Eucharist.

At the Cathedral on Sunday, the young pilgrims carried the Scottish Youth Cross, blessed by Cardinal O'Brien last September, in the presence of the First Minister of Scotland. The Cross is a focal point for young people to celebrate their Christian faith.

Later the pilgrims and their families and friends came forward and made an act of commitment to the Cross by touching or kissing the wood.

In an address to Bishop Cunningham, Owen McDowall and Caoimhe Hunter Blair, of Our Lady & St Cuthbert's, Maybole, spoke with conviction of their faith journey and their hopes for World Youth Day. The text of their address can be read here.

The Bishop thanked them and all the young people, not only for their efforts to take part in World Youth Day, but also for their willing service in the parishes which they belong to.

The young pilgrims were blessed by Bishop Cunningham and each of them was presented with a Blessed John Paul II cross.

After the service, together with their families, friends a some of the priests, they enjoyed a buffet in the Cathedral hall where they were given the latest information to help them prepare for this potentially life-changing pilgrimage.

You can follow the pilgrimage on the World Youth Day 2011 blog for Galloway Diocese, and see live coverage of the Madrid events at www.madrid11.com.