Ten Thousand Young People - at least.

This morning there was a special event. For the last 17 years, in Panama City, they hold what they call a Eucharistic Appointment. People are invited from over the country and, essentially, they hold a large open air Mass in a football stadium. To facilitate this many parishes drop a Mass or two to encourage people to travel.

I was expecting to see pretty much what you would see every Sunday here, just on a bigger scale. In fact, there was a lot more to it. This event is geared very much for young people and there were well over 10,000 of them present at the Mass, and very engaged with it. Last night they gathered for an all night vigil at the stadium which consisted of an extended sort of holy hour, a lot of singing and an awful lot of cheering and clapping - one of the things that Central and South Americans do very well is noise, very often very musical, but, sometimes, just noise. I didn't go to the vigil as I didn't fancy spending all night sitting on the ground in the heat - while it does cool down at night it only cools down to 26 degrees or so.

This morning when we arrived at the stadium there was already a huge amount of people who had taken their seats - those who arrive there earliest get the seats in the shade. A large number of priests, religious and quite a few of the country's bishops were also there. But the star of the show was the Panamanian youth. It's actually amazing to see 10,000 young people all singing and clapping together - really enjoying the whold experience. In my estimation, young people made up approximately 90% of the congregation.

Next year, Panama will host the World Youth Day Event with Pope Francis in attendance. On today's evidence, they will have no shortage whatever of very willing, and very capable volunteers. The day really was a credit to the organisers.

As we arrived they had laid on a really lovely breakfast for the priests, seminarians, and workers. This was followed up after the Mass by another feed, for lunch. But, in fairness, we needed it by the time the three-hour Mass in the sun was over (including a homily that lasted 46 minutes!). Since I was one of the ones asked to distribute communion, I was in one of the hospitality boxes for a lot of it but, when I went down to do my job I was in left in no doubt as to the fact that it had got extremely hot in the meantime.

It was an enlivening experience that also left me worn out by the end of it - enlivening because of the sheer enthusiasm, exhausting because of the heat.

In the afternoon one of my past pupils came to visit me. He had to leave the seminary due to health problems two years ago. He has now got the all clear and is considering returning to take up where he left off. A very fine guy - I was sort of hoping he might go for the Augustinians.