Displaying items by tag: World Youth Day

World Youth Day | Lisbon, Portugal | August 1-6, 2023

At the conclusion of the Holy Year of Redemption in 1984, Pope St. John Paul II invited young people from around the world to join him in St. Peter’s Square for an International Jubilee of youth on the following Palm Sunday. Some 300,000 young people attended. The first World Youth Day was announced in 1985 and the first official World Youth Day was held in 1986.

Its tradition comes from the practice in the Polish Church to have 13 day summer camps for young adults. It provides an opportunity for young people to meet people of the same faith and to share various prayer experiences over the weeklong “Day.”

Pope John Paul II explained his project at his final World Youth Day in Toronto. “When, back in 1985, I wanted to start the World Youth Days… I imagined a powerful moment in which the young people of the world could meet Christ, who is eternally young, and could learn from him how to be bearers of the Gospel to other young people.

The Carmelite Order inaugurated a Carmelite Day within the larger World Youth Day event after 2007. Although most young people were attending World Youth Day through their local diocese, the idea was to bring those from Carmelite ministries around the world together for one day to celebrate the Carmelite family.

The closing Mass for the 1995 World Youth Day in the Philippines, attended by 5 million people, set a world’s record for the largest number of people gathered for a single religious event. (That record was surpassed when 6 million people attended a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis 20 years later in the Philippines.)

World Youth Day | Lisbon, Portugal | August 1-6, 2023

Pope Francis met with some 800,000 young people in Lisbon’s Eduardo VII Park, the hub of many of the events during the 2023 World Youth Day. The Stations of the Cross were focused on prayer for those suffering the effects of mass shootings, wars, abuse, anxiety, eating disorders and persecution. The pope assured those who joined him in the park that Jesus never fails to be present, despite the hardships the youth of today's face.

"Jesus weeps with us," the pope said during the Way of the Cross. Speaking without a script, he said, "All of us in life have cried and we cry still. And there is Jesus with us. He cries with us because he accompanies us in the darkness that leads us to tears."

During the Way of the Cross, video were shown indicating some of the situations today’s youth find themselves in. There were also meditations and reflections on the everyday lives of young people in today’s world. "We live in a world of mirrors where all that matters is our appearance, our image. Selfies after selfies. The tyranny of the right body and the perfect smile," read one reflection. "Photos of us on social media in carefully studied poses. Artificial posts waiting for likes."

The cross of Christ, Pope Francis said to the young people, is a message of hope, one of victory over death, and shows that sacrificial love, while risky, is always worth it. The pope told the young people that despite these temptations, fears and distractions, Christ and the Church offer a message of inclusion and renewal.

It has been reported in various new media that the priests have been hearing more than 10,000 confessions a day. The pope has participated as well, beginning his day by hearing the confessions of three young people from Guatemala, Italy, and Spain. The event organizers have provided makeshift confessionals with simple wooden benches. The pope opted to sit in one of these rather than a larger confessional complete with a cushioned, high back chair.

The pope later went to meet charity workers. Here too he opted to speak spontaneously rather than read through the prepared remarks. He blamed the change being necessary because he was having difficulties with his glasses. However, the pope often put aside prepared remarks to speak to his audience.

"When I shake the hand of someone in need, or a sick person, or a marginalized person, do I do this right after so they don't infect me?," the pope asked while rubbing his hand on his cassock.

"Concrete love," he told the aid workers, "is that which gets one’s hands dirty."

World Youth Day | Lisbon, Portugal | August 1-6, 2023

Pope Francis flew from Rome to Lisbon, Portugal, to participate in the mega gathering of Catholic youth taking place these days in Lisbon. While the official theme of the gathering of hundreds of thousands of Catholic youth from around the world is Mary Went With Haste, a second but often repeated theme are the pope's words “Everyone is welcome in the Church.”

At his opening address to an estimated 500,000 young people on August 3 during the official welcoming ceremony, the pope said, "There is room for everyone in the Church and, whenever there is not, then, please, we must make room, including for those who make mistakes, who fall or struggle.

"The Lord does not point a finger, but opens wide his arms: Jesus showed us this on the cross," Francis continued. "He does not close the door, but invites us to enter; he does not keep us at a distance, but welcomes us."

"Let these be days when we fully realize in our hearts that we are loved just as we are," the pope told a sea of young people, many draped in their country's flags. Many waited several hours to greet the pontiff.

This theme of the Church being a wide tent, allowing everyone to have a place, came up during the pontiff’s talk to some 7,000 students at the Catholic University of Portugal as well. "Christianity cannot be lived as a fortress surrounded by high walls, one that raises the ramparts against the world," Pope Francis said.

When the pope was speaking with the Portuguese clergy and religious, he again pointed out that it is everyone’s responsibility to welcome everyone into the Church.

Although the pope recently spent time at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, students affiliated with Carmelite schools and parishes who are attending the weeklong event have described Pope Francis as energetic and enthused. It has often been noted that the pope appears most relaxed and smiling when he is meeting with the everyday people of the Church.

It has been reported that the pope took the opportunity during his time in Portugal to meet with some victims of the earthquake in Turkey, youth from war torn Ukraine, and victims of the sex scandals that have rocked the Portuguese Church.

World Youth Day | Lisbon, Portugal | August 1-6, 2023

You could not but be impressed by the hundreds of thousands of young people who have come to Lisbon for the 2023 World Youth Day. Like Mary who got up and went in haste into the hill country because she wanted to be with her cousin Elizabeth, these young people have travelled because they want to be here and it looks very much like they are enjoying every moment of it.

They walk for hours. They stand and sit and form human chains and dance all in the heat of the Lisbon sun. They join in the music provided by very good musicians as they wait for the religious ceremonies to begin and in every case once the call to prayer is heard silence, respect and participation take over. That’s the way it was at the opening Eucharist on Tuesday evening, the welcome for Pope Francis on Thursday evening, and the Stations of the Cross on Friday. Now we wait for the Vigil and the Mass for World Youth Day, also referred to as the Mass of Sending Out, on Sunday morning.

The Carmelite Youth Day on Wednesday gave us the same experience of excitement at seeing young Carmelites accompanied by sisters, friars, and older lay Carmelites, converging on the Parish of Sao Antonio dos Cavalheiros, some distance from the centre of Lisbon. They came from the four corners of the earth, Australia and Timor Leste, the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Canada, Honduras, El Salvador, Malta, UK, Italy, Spain and the host country Portugal.

The hospitality provided by the parish was wonderful, which lent to the joy that people felt just in being together as people for whom Carmel is their spiritual home. We were all blessed by this way of visiting one another, attentive to one another, with words and expressions that are born of the faith and love we have received.

Photographic memories will abound, including those taken by a drone. The other memories of feelings and inspirations will also last for a long time.