UC representatives elected to attend World Youth Day in August
The young Chileans will be present at the different stages of the event, which will take place in Portugal, awaiting the Holy Father, from the welcoming and opening ceremonies, Stations of the Cross and vigils, to the sending-off mass.
“Mary got up and left without delay” (Lk 1,39) is the motto of the XXXVIII World Youth Day (WYD) that will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, and that will bring together 400,000 pilgrims from more than 151 countries. From Chile, one of the participating groups is the UC Delegation – WYD Lisbon 2023, made up of 115 people, including students and administrators, representatives of the Catholic University and its Directorate of Pastoral and Christian Culture.
This is a great pilgrimage and international experience, between August 1 and 6, which will unite young people from all over the world with the Holy Father, in order to promote peace and fraternity among peoples and nations.
“I would like to greet with great affection the 115 pilgrims who make up the UC Delegation, and who are blessed to be able to participate in this ecclesial celebration. I would also like to invite you to take advantage of this opportunity so that, with the help of Our Lady of Fatima, each one can have a meeting with the other young people, and, in a very special way, with Pope Francis. May it be an instance for us to re-enchant and motivate ourselves in the evangelizing mission, reaffirming our faith and sharing this joy and blessing with others”, said the UC senior chaplain, the priest Jorge Merino .
“Mary got up and left without delay” (Lk 1,39) is the motto of the XXXVIII World Youth Day (WYD) that will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, and that will bring together 400,000 pilgrims from more than 151 countries
Benjamín Cruz , director of Pastoral UC, added that the 115 UC pilgrims are ambassadors of the University before Pope Francis in the “largest youth event in the world” and then, upon their return, they will have the mission of spreading the message of Christ . “During the first week of August they will live an experience of faith that will transform their hearts, to return to Chile, to their day to day life, to be and bear witness, to be able to share what they have learned with their friends and family.”
Walk together
Talks, conferences, retreats, spaces for formation and prayer, are some of the instances that for months have been carried out by the UC Pastoral so that the pilgrims that are part of the UC Delegation go as prepared as possible to this “festival of the youth”, where the idea is to live the faith in community.
“I believe that what we all dream of is to live that faith in community with people from all over the world. It is something impressive. Everyone lives their faith differently and I think that is very enriching. All ways of expressing faith are valuable”, stated Francisca Vigneaux, coordinator of the UC – WYD Lisbon Delegation, together with Martín Errázuriz.
“I would also like to invite you to take advantage of this opportunity, so that, with the help of Our Lady of Fatima, each one can have a meeting with the other young people, and, in a very special way, with Pope Francis” – Fr. Jorge Merino , UC Senior Chaplain
In this sense, the coordinator added that she hopes that what is lived in WYD does not just stay there, in the first week of August, “but that we can really arrive with a new heart and with the desire to live a constant WYD . In addition, that it does not remain only in the pilgrims who went to Lisbon in person, but also with those who could not make it; that they can live that WYD with us ”, she said.
Finally, both Francisca Vigneaux and Martín Errázuriz invited everyone to join in prayer for this day. “We are going to WYD with a happy heart and very excited to live this tremendous experience. We leave you invited to pray for the Church, the Pope and his intentions, and also for our UC Delegation, so that this instance may be very fruitful and enlightening”.
An encounter with history
World Youth Day is the great global meeting of young people with the Pope that is celebrated every three years in a part of the world. The Pope is in charge of choosing the diocese that will host the pilgrims, being this the one in charge of organizing the event, in collaboration with the Holy See, specifically with the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life.
It was Saint John Paul II who started WYD in 1985, in order to have a meeting, coexistence and dialogue with young people from all over the world. The first version was in Rome and since then it has been developed in four of the five continents (only Africa is missing).
Buenos Aires (1987), Santiago de Compostela (1989), Czestochowa (1991), Denver (1993), Manila (1995), Paris (1997), Rome (2000), Toronto (2002), Cologne (2005), Sydney ( 2008), Madrid (2011), Rio de Janeiro (2013), Krakow (2016) and Panama (2019), have hosted WYD.
Precisely in Panama it was announced that the next host city would be Lisbon, initially scheduled for the summer of 2022; however, it was postponed for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.