World Youth Day, conceived by Saint John Paul II and celebrated for the first time in 1986 in the city of Rome, has been a source of great graces in the life of the Church and in the lives of so many young people who renewed their experience with the love of God, they developed friendly relationships and shared with people from other cultures, as well as found their place in the Church. In other words, WYD provided a true vocational awakening.
World Youth Day is also a very special event for the Shalom Community. It could not be different, since the Charism has within its spirituality the Primacy of the Young. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that WYD is a vocational reunion for all the members and for the entire body of the Community that is renewed in its mission.
In addition to the formative commitment that is developed during the process of preparing for WYD, through the deepening of the themes proposed by Pope Francis, the Community has collaborated with the Local Organizing Committees of the last WYD – from this passion three shalom missions were born, one in Krakow (Poland) where WYD 2016 was held and Panama City (Panama) in 2019, and recently the Lisbon mission.
Shalom Lisbon
At the invitation of the Patriarchate of Lisbon, the Shalom Catholic Community inaugurated its missionary presence in the city that will host the next WYD in 2023. The first missionaries arrived in mid-July 2021 to join the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) in Lisbon.
The foundation solemnly took place in a Eucharistic celebration presided over by Monsignor Américo Aguiar on October 23.
“Our goal in this beginning of the foundation is to serve with our missionary presence to the Local Church, contributing with the organization of WYD according to the light of our Shalom charism, always at the service of the evangelization of all peoples.” Patricia de Morais Correia, responsible for the mission. “A strong experience that we touched on at this beginning of foundation is how divine providence is leading us and opening doors to Evangelization, in its own way and according to its wisdom. We play strongly in the action of the Gospel that the Spirit blows where he wants and leads us as instruments in his hands”.
The itinerary of preparation for WYD Lisbon 2023 proposes a path of deepening the faith, based on the verb to get up and it is also the imperative of the first times of foundation. Get up now, and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness of what you have seen ”(cf. Acts 26,16), get up and leave in haste (Lk 1, 39) at the service of young people and the local Church.