Brazil is going to experience a World Youth Day!!!
It was August 21, XXVI World Youth Day, direct from the Cuatro Vientos Airport in Madrid, Spain (2011), and Pope Benedict XVI ended the Holy Mass saying “I am pleased to announce that the location of the next World Youth Day, in 2013, (At this time, my heart raced)… will be Rio de Janeiro!” Wow! Brazil was elected the side of the greats youth even in the world!
Listening to those words, so familiar to us Brazilians said by the Pope, brought me to a profound emotion and to express a great praise to God. I shook in my room in the house, all in the most absolute silence (I did not want to know how this is possible before the explosion of joy that I felt), finally the dawn still had not arrives and some sisters in my community house were sleeping, a few were waking. Later, already it was not only I, nor were we alone there accompanying that transmission, we were one heart in communion with the millions of youth that shared the same sentiment. We are church, we are part of a living and young Church, we belong to Jesus and we love the Pope.
But the time passed rapidly, and what appeared so distant, now is closer than ever: we are in a year of contemplating the words of Pope Benedict XVI in the Air Force Base Quatro Ventos: “…the location of the next World Youth Day, in 2013, will be Rio de Janeiro!” I don’t know about your, but I want to see this upclose.
And if you find this festival all commences on July 23rd of 2013, the date marked for the beginning of WYD in Brazil, know: the Brazilian territory already is filled with the spirit of World Youth Day, for a youth that knows to which flock they belong: “We are your youth Benedict!” Give a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6eR1EwawOk
Now the it comes back!! And to prepare this year before WYD, the Local Organizing Committee (COL) of WYD Rio2013 realized a great event in the end of the week of July 27 in the Maracanã, Rio De Janeiro complex. During this even it was presented a preview of what WYD will be in Brazil. See a little of what the festival was like here.
There are many activities that happened in all of Brazil to prepare for the Pope’s visit next year, but I have to ask you: How are you going to be prepared? In the end, this call excludes no one. On the contrary, it is a call without borders that involves all youth without distinction, that renews and reinforces the ties among youth, (JPII) And You are going to remain outside of this?
Could it be that, you do not know what it is to participate in a WYD, better still, you do not know how to express what you do not understand your feeling that is “…to go out to the encounter with God that enters in the history of men through the pascal mystery of Jesus Christ. . . He entered in an irreversible manner. And wants to encounter before all, you, the youth. And to each one He wants to say: “Follow me. I am the way, the truth and the life.” (Blessed John Paul II)
But perhaps, you also ask yourself: “Why would I leave my house to go to Rio de Janeiro?
Pope Benedict XVI responds: to “…show the world that the faith confers a happiness and a true joy, full and longlasting. And if the mode of living as Christians at times appears tired and boring, be the first to testify the jubilous face and happiness of faith. The gospel is the “good news” that God loves us and that each one of us is important to Him. Show the world that it is precisely that!”
Quer saber que experiência é possível fazer numa JMJ? “… Durante cada Jornada Mundial da Juventude fazemos a experiência de uma alegria intensa, a alegria da comunhão, a alegria de ser cristãos, a alegria da fé. É uma das características destes encontros” (BXVI).
Do you want to know that the experience is possible this WYD? “…During each WYD we make the experience of an intense joy, the joy of communion, the joy of being Christians, the joy of faith. It is one of the characteristics of these encounters.” (BXVI)
Guys, the Pope already is with the heart of Brazil: “Now already we are oriented to the next Encounter in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, what will the theme, “Go make disciples of all the nations!” (cf Mt 28:19)” (BXVI, 2012)
I never was at a WYD, but I bring in my a profound anxiety of experiencing one. And You? What experience are you going to make? The accompanying all through TV or of whomever takes their luggage and puts that at the end of the road to be able to count on all the world that it may be the greatest concentration of youth in the world? And better still, with the Pope.
“When one encounters Christ and welcomes his Gospel the world changes and we are stimulated to communicate to the others experience itself.” (JPII, 2004) What will be yours.
Together,
Canção Nova Comunity