On July 20th, of 2023, my older sister and brother and I set out for our 3 week trip for World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal. Our trip was put together and organized by the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit (MSpS) (the order of priests who run our parish and many others throughout the world).
While World Youth Day is more of a World Youth week, the priests of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit decided to put together a whole pilgrimage leading up to the event.
Our group was made up of about 70 pilgrims from the MSpS parishes of Portland, Oregon; Dallas, Texas; and Seattle, Washington. Along the way, our group merged with three other MSpS parishes from Spain, Mexico, and Italy.
After two weeks of traveling and visiting many religious sites, we finally made it to Lisbon, Portugal, where all of the World Youth Day events were to take place. There were many World Youth Day events during the span of about 6 days. Some of these events included: an opening ceremony, Stations of the Cross, a USA party, and the final campout.
There were many more, both official and non-official events that took place. All of the events attracted lots of pilgrims, but it was estimated that the final campout had around 1.5 million attendees.
World Youth Day was started by Pope St. John Paul II in 1985 and was created with the purpose of bringing the youth from all over the world together.
World Youth Day encapsulates the very meaning of the Catholic Church by encouraging and strengthening the qualities of being One, Holy, and Apostolic. World Youth Day happens about every three years, and the next World Youth Day will be in Seoul, Korea, most likely in the summer of 2027.
