One hundred days to the WYD
At a hundred days from the World Youth Day, the archbishop of the diocese hosting it, Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela, does not hesitate to predict that this event will become a new ‘Pentecost’: « We are at the doors of a new Pentecost ». This is what he says in a letter published last Sunday, opening the final stretch of preparations for this event, to be held from 16 to 21 August.
From the moment the Holy Father announced, in Sydney on 3 July 2008, that Madrid would be the site of the next world youth meeting, « we have not stopped preparing ourselves and getting ready spiritually and pastorally so that the World Youth Day in Madrid, with the Holy Father, may become the providential opportunity for a close encounter, authentic and joyful, with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. »
This meeting, he adds, « calls on the youth in the Church of Jesus Christ for their lives, now tarnished and broken, now fresh and vigorous, to be rooted and built in Him, who alone can offer and give them truth, hope and love; who alone can show them the right direction and accompany them on the way that leads to authentic and lasting happiness: here and in the hereafter! »
«The local Church of Madrid, charged by the Pope with the organisation of this great ecclesial event – without a doubt the most exceptional in all its history -, receives at the same time a singular gift and a pastoral responsibility without precedence, which the Pastor of the Universal Church entrusts to her in view of the great and very current objective of the new evangelization of the youth of the Third Millenium.»
Last stretch
The last stretch of preparations for the coming WYD, he says, « is already here. And so the imminence of what will be a new, fruitful and beautiful hour of grace and the Spirit for the Church and for its youth, and what is more, the certainty that we are at the doors of a new ‘Pentecost’ which will renew their hearts and their life projects thanks to an ardent love of Jesus Christ, imposes itself upon us with inevitable pastoral evidence. It is urgent to respond to it personally and as a community.
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ZENIT.orgMADRID, Sunday 8 May 2011