2023-08-09 10:34:00
August 9, 2023 / 3:34 am
This Wednesday, August 9, during the first General Audience held after a break during the month of July, Pope Francis reflected on his trip to Lisbon within the framework of WYD.
The Holy Father clarified that WYD “is not a vacation” but “an encounter with Christ through the Church.”
Here are the words of Pope Francis:
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
In recent days I have gone to Portugal to participate in the 37th World Youth Day. This WYD in Lisbon, celebrated after the pandemic, has been felt by everyone as a gift from God, who has moved the hearts of young people, so many young people from different parts of the world, so many, to meet and find Jesus.
As we well know, the pandemic has had a strong impact on social behaviour: isolation has often degenerated into confinement, and young people have been particularly affected by it.
With this World Youth Day, God has given a “push” in the opposite direction: it has marked a new beginning of the great pilgrimage of young people across the continents, in the name of Jesus Christ. And it is no coincidence that it was in Lisbon, a city that overlooks the ocean, a city that is a symbol of the great explorations by sea.
And then at WYD the Gospel proposed to young people the model of the Virgin Mary. At her most critical moment, Mary does not close in on herself, but moved by God-Love “she got up and left without delay” (Lk 1,39). I really like to invoke the Virgin with this reality, the hurried Virgin, who always does things for us “hurriedly”, she never makes us wait, She is the mother of all.
Thus Mary still today, in the third millennium, guides the pilgrimage of young people in the footsteps of Jesus. Just like she did a century ago in Portugal, at Fatima, when she addressed three children, entrusting them with a message of faith and hope for the Church and for the world. For this reason, during WYD, I returned to Fatima, the place of the apparitions, and together with some young sick people I prayed for God to heal the world of diseases of the soul: pride, lies, enmity, violence, are diseases of the soul. soul and the world is sick with these diseases. And we have renewed our consecration, of Europe, of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I have prayed for peace, because there are so many wars in the world, so many.
The young people of the world flocked to Lisbon in large numbers and with great enthusiasm. There I have found small groups, and some with many problems. Ukrainian youth, who had stories that were painful.
It was not a vacation, a tourist trip, and neither was it an end-in-itself spiritual event; WYD is an encounter with Christ through the Church, young people are going to meet Christ. It is true that where there are young people there is joy, a bit of all these things.
My visit to Portugal, on the occasion of WYD, benefited from its festive atmosphere, from the wave of young people. I thank God for this, thinking especially of the local Church which, in exchange for the great effort made by the organization and the reception, will receive new energy to continue on its way, to cast the nets again with apostolic passion.
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Young people in Portugal are already a vital presence today, and now, after this “transfusion” received by the Churches around the world, they will be even more so. And many young people on their return have passed through Rome, I was seeing them, there are also some here who have participated in this journey. And this will be healthy for the entire social body: as the Gospel says, it will be leaven that makes the whole group grow (cf. Mt 13,33).
While fighting is taking place in the Ukraine and in other parts of the world, and while war is being planned in certain hidden rooms, this is ugly, war is being planned, WYD has shown everyone that another world is possible: a world of brothers and Sisters, where the flags of all the peoples wave together, one next to the other, without hatred, without fear, without closures, without weapons! The message of the young people has been clear: will the “great ones of the earth” listen to it? This youthful enthusiasm that wants peace is a parable for our time, and still today Jesus says: “He who has ears, let him hear! He who has eyes, let him see!” Let’s hope that the whole world listens to this WYD and sees this beauty of young people moving forward.
I once again express my gratitude to the President of the Republic, who has been at all the celebrations, and to the other civil authorities; to the patriarch of Lisbon, who has been good, to the president of the Episcopal Conference and the coordinating bishop of WYD, to all the collaborators and volunteers. The volunteers, whom I visited the last day before returning, were 25,000. Thank you all! Through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the Lord bless the youth of the whole world and bless the Portuguese people. Let us pray together to the Virgin so that she blesses all the Portuguese people.
Pope Francis, born on December 17, 1936 in Buenos Aires (Argentina), is the first Latin American Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, assuming the papacy on March 13, 2013. His close style and his emphasis on mercy they have left a distinctive mark on his pontificate.
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