WYD Panama 2019 Category

My experience of WYD2019, Ana Vargas, Girls’ Youth from San Luis, Argentina• It is the second gathering I have participated in, and I came with more expectations of this one, since one already knows what a gathering is like from previous experience. Those experiences totally met my expectations and then some. They were days that allowed me to deepen in an encounter with myself, with the people around me, and most importantly, with God and his mother since she was one gathering’s protagonists in the motto showing her response toRead More
HOW I EXPERIENCED WYD2019 – POPE FRANCIS, Editorial team. • The World Youth Day 2019 has ended, but we carry on – we continue with the impressions of the events that are still missing on schoenstatt.org, and we begin a new series of articles under the theme: “How I experienced the World Youth Day.” We asked several people and are looking forward to the testimonies of many more – and the first to give his testimony is Pope Francis himself. — Pope Francis’ Testimony at the General Audience, 30.01.2019 DearRead More
WYD2019 PANAMA, Maria Fischer • Does someone speak Spanish? Yessssss! Of course. Portuguese? Yessss! English? Yesss! Does someone speak Italian? “Yessssss!” shouted Pamela Fabiano the only Schoenstatt representative from Italy along with the Brazilians and Germans close by her that also shouted. On the night of January 23rd, the day of Pope Francis’ arrival in Panama, hundreds of Schoenstatt young people, parish neighbors, and many other people were in the square beside San Francisco de la Caleta parish for the Schoenstatt Marian Festival at WYD, to share their love forRead More
WYD2019, María Fischer • What a fatherly face, the face of a good shepherd, a face of solidarity, Pope Francis’ face as he listened to the testimony of this young boy at the Las Garzas Detention Centre for Minors in Pacora. Pope Francis is with his favorite people, with those in one of the existential peripheries where he urges Christians to go. One of these existential peripheries where Schoenstatters from various countries go are pastoral ministries to prisons, like the “Visitation of Mary” prison ministry, and the Casa Madre deRead More
WYD2019, Maria Fischer and Fr. Jorge Andrés Rubido, with material from the Holy See Press Office and ACIprensa• “Pope Francis visited the Cuban youth,” commented Fr. Jorge Andrés Rubio. The Pope fulfilled his promise. On Friday, 25 January, the approximately 450 who pilgrims travelled from Cuba to participate in the World Youth Day (WYD) were surprised by Pope Francis, who visited them at the college were they were staying, to greet them and invite them to “have the joy of pilgrims” when they return home.— The Cuban youth were inRead More
WYD PANAMA, Pope Francis’ messages 24.01.2019, María Fischer• “I just heard the Pope’s words to the bishops in Central America. These are words for us to reread, pray, and discover the message in order to bring it to life. Not only for the religious but also for lay people who play any pastoral role,” commented Ana María Ghiggi from the Schoenstatt.org team after the live transmission of Pope Francis’ meeting on 24 January. We share the messages here so that we can read, pray, and discover and bring Pope Francis’Read More
WYD2019, Maria Fischer • Hours before the Pope’s arrival, a large delegation of Cuban youths was already waiting near the Nunciature. They had a picture of the Mother Thrice Admirable of Schoenstatt with them; the Costa Rican Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign gifted it to them. Like them on January 23rd, thousands of young people and Panamanian citizens filled the streets to greet Pope Francis arriving at the first World Youth Day in Central America, the first World Youth Day with a Marian motto. — Pope Francis arrived at the Tocumen InternationalRead More
WYD2019, Maria Fischer • A church filled with young people wearing t-shirts from the international Schoenstatt Youth meetings in Costa Rica, several Pilgrim Mother images in front of the altar, Schoenstatt songs concluding with the belting out of the Franz Reinisch hymn, entrusting themselves to the Blessed Mother with the small consecration prayer recited by hundreds of people, more than 20 Schoenstatt priests from the altar, talks in four languages – a very, very warm welcome for the “owner of the house,” Fr. Rómulo Aguilar, to whom Fr. Esteban UriburuRead More
WYD PANAMÁ, Maria Fischer • “We thank God for hosting the first World Youth Day where Mary – “the star of evangelization” – has been proposed to you as a model of courage and courage, who was available to fulfill God’s plan , for the one who had chosen her and whose response is the motto of this WYD: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.” During the opening Mass of the World Youth Day (WYD) Panama 2019, the local Archbishop,Read More
WYD2019 PANAMA, Maria Fischer Upon landing and arriving in Panama from San Jose, Costa Rica, a gigantic poster up in the airport read: “Pope Francis, all of Panama joyfully welcomes you.”  WYD is felt, heard, and experienced in this small Central American country filling up with pilgrims from throughout the world to celebrate this encounter of God’s young people with the Pope. — Indeed WYD was already being felt at the San Jose airport – with a large group from Guatemala, others from Canada, Colombia, Brazil, and Germany. While theyRead More