Young adults from Archdiocese of Baltimore invited to experience local and international World Youth Day events

Young adults from across the Archdiocese of Baltimore will have plenty of opportunities to experience next year’s World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal – both in person at the international gathering of young people and through a yearlong series of local pilgrimages that kicks off this month.

The archdiocese is sponsoring a July 28-Aug. 7, 2023, pilgrimage to Lisbon for young people age 18 to 39. The trip will include daily Mass, pilgrimages to Fatima, morning catechetical sessions with English-speaking bishops, priests and youth, World Youth Day festival activities, and liturgies that are expected to include Pope Francis.

Locally, young adults are invited to participate in free monthly pilgrimages to parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore, each of which will begin with a Mass and will be followed by a talk on topics related to living the faith with the Blessed Virgin Mary as a guide.

Angelus Virata, director of evangelization at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore, is the group leader for the pilgrimage to Portugal and the coordinator of the local pilgrimage series. All World Youth Day activities will relate to the event’s theme, “Mary arose and went with haste,” a Gospel passage chosen by Pope Francis that opens the account of Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth.

“We, too, are called to have that same attitude in responding to God’s call in our lives and to really rise up and become the missionary disciples God has called each of us to be,” Virata said.

World Youth Day gives Catholics a chance to see the international dimension of the church, Virata added, and helps encourage them in their faith.

“There’s a vitality in seeing the church come alive in its youth in a way we sometimes might not always see at our parishes,” she said.

The local pilgrimages will begin Aug. 20, 2022, at the Baltimore Basilica. Father Brendan Fitzgerald, the newly appointed rector of the basilica, will be the inaugural speaker for the series.

Eleven other speakers, including Dominican Sister Michaela Martinez of Mount de Sales Academy in Catonsville, Father Brian Nolan of St. Isaac Jogues in Carney and Father Erik Arnold of St. John the Evangelist in Severna Park, will give English presentations.

Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski, C.Ss.R., urban vicar for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and Ximena DeBroeck, former director of catechetical and pastoral formation for the Archdiocese of Baltimore who now serves as a theology professor at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, will give presentations in Spanish.

Father Matthew Himes, assistant vocations director for the Archdiocese of Baltimore and chaplain for the World Youth Day pilgrimage, will give the final talk in the local pilgrimage series July 15, 2023, at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland.

Virata noted that the local pilgrimage series is open to all young adults whether or not they are planning to go to Portugal.

“The goal of this is really to engage, evangelize and catechize our young adults in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and for our young adults to come alive in their faith – and if they’re already alive in their faith, to deepen that faith,” she said.

For more information about the World Youth Day pilgrimage to Portugal and the local pilgrimage series, visit www.archbalt.org/aob-world-youth-day.

Listen to a radio interview with Angelus Virata about World Youth Day events (second segment of Catholic Review Radio below)

Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org

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