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World Youth Day – 26 July 2023

25 juillet 2023
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: cultural festival, faith, music dance, pilgrimage, Pope Francis, prayer, worship

“This is an opportunity for young people to celebrate their faith, meet other youth from around the world and to have a special encounter with Pope Francis,” said Isabel Correa, National Coordinator of the Canadian delegation to the World Youth Day 2023. “Over time, we have heard and seen the powerful experience that World Youth Day has been in the lives of so many Canadian youth and we expect that this year’s pilgrimage will be no different. It is a transformative and inspiring moment that they will cherish for years to come.”

Michelle Pacheco, a 26-year-old Canadian delegate from Toronto, currently works as a missionary with the Archdiocese of Toronto’s Youth Office and says that she has devoted all her preparation time to prayer. “Above all else, I have been asking people to pray for me and have also asked them how I can pray for them during my pilgrimage to World Youth Day,” she said.

“Since this is my first World Youth Day, it is difficult to say exactly what I will be able to take away from it,” said Justin Nguyen, a 28-year-old Canadian from Vancouver. “But what I do know is that it is a journey of faith – it is my first time attending WYD, my first time in Portugal and in Spain. I just hope and pray that it will be a time that allows me to focus on my relationship with God, then return home, and continue the mission that God has entrusted to me in service to my local community.”

World Youth Day is an opportunity to hear talks from leading Catholic speakers, and notably, including Bishops from every continent. In addition to catechetical sessions, there are opportunities for prayer and divine worship. A special element of World Youth Day also includes a cultural festival with music, dance, and creative expression, drawing on talented young people from around the world.

Pope Francis will spend five days in Portugal, most of them in Lisbon, where he will meet university students, enjoy lunch with young people, pray with them and preside at Mass, while also making a stop in Fatima, one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in the world.

Source: Text: https://www.cccb.ca/media-release/5000-canadian-youth-join-pope-francis-in-portugal-for-world-youth-day/
Image: Archeparchy of Winnipeg

 

1st Sunday of Lent, Year C – 2022

4 mars 2022
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: goal, honor, Lent, pilgrimage, promises, protection, Ps.91:14-15, what God does for us

Usually, our reflection is on a theme taken from one of the readings.
However, today we will focus our attention on the Psalm of today’s celebration, Psalm 91.

This Sunday opens the period of Lent and we start today our Lenten pilgrimage.
A pilgrimage, a journey to a destination, to a goal that we plan to attain.
We are not setting on a leisurely walk, we are moving intending to reach a goal.

To do so, many of us are considering what we will do to come to our destination.
What if we changed the perspective?
What if we no longer kept our attention on what WE will do
but rather saw – at long last, perhaps – what GOD is ready to do for us?

In Psalm 91, the author lists what he is convinced God will do for the person who acknowledges him as God.
If we trust him and rely on him, God will guard us from harm, he will protect us from danger of all kinds.

Suddenly, the Psalmist is… interrupted, as if God cuts him short!
It seems that God wants to speak for himself!
We then hear these amazing words:

“Because he/she loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him/her;
I will protect him/her, for he/she acknowledges my name.
He/she will call on me, and I will answer him/her;
I will be with him/her in trouble,
I will deliver him/her and honor him/her.”   (Ps.91:14-15)
 
We often think that we should make promises to God,
but here it is God himself who makes these wonderful promises to us.
God commits himself, he speaks words that are really astonishing.
Not only will he rescue and protect us, he will be with us in our troubles and deliver us.

Have you ever thought that God would… honor you?
This is how he concludes his promise – he will honor us!
 
If we allow ourselves to be inspired by these words,
a quiet serenity will be ours as we progress on the Lenten journey.
 
 

Note: Another reflection on a different theme is available in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/1er-dimanche-du-careme-annee-c-2022/

 

Source: Image: flickr

Year of Mercy

9 décembre 2015
Nicole Gregoire
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Catégories: Anglophones et anglophiles
Mots-clés: Mercy, pilgrimage, Pope Francis, St.Peter's Rome

HolyYear

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis pushed open the great bronze doors of St. Peter’s Basilica on Tuesday December 8 to launch his Holy Year of Mercy, declaring that mercy trumps moralizing in his Catholic Church.

Francis stood in prayer on the threshold of the basilica’s Holy Door then walked through it, the first of an estimated 10 million faithful who will pass through over the course of the next year in a rite of pilgrimage dating back centuries.