Some 1,400 Schoenstatt youth from 20 countries will participate in World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal. Before WYD commences, some important international events will be held for all young people. One of the highlights, without a doubt, is the pilgrimage to the Shrine of Fatima on July 30.

Carolina Guibarra, a member of the Lisbon Girls’ Youth, talks about this special event and tells us about the details and significance of this pilgrimage:

On the third day of our encounter, we will venture a little distance from our Shrine and go on pilgrimage to Fatima, where we find a message very similar to the path that Schoenstatt proposes to us. In the light of this day’s motto, “Let us see your graces”, we visit this Shrine where Mary showed her graces very clearly.

It would be unthinkable not to stop in Fatima while the international Schoenstatt Youth gather in Portugal. Unthinkable because, in the timeless message of Fatima, we find the salvation of the world. Unthinkable because, in Our Lady’s petitions to the little shepherds, we find the invitation to conversion to which we are called daily. Unthinkable because here we find numerous characteristics of Schoenstatt’s spirituality – faith in Our Lady’s mission, smallness of instruments, apostolic sending forth and, above all, consecration to her Immaculate Heart.

We do not go on pilgrimage by chance

We have tried to reflect on how the message of Fatima challenges us, the Girls’ Youth in particular, and how it relates to the theme of our encounter – Make me see, make it clear! We realize that the invitation and the request to consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the humble surrender of our existence into her hands, is part of the way in which Our Lady brings clarification to our lives. It is only through total and disinterested surrender that we can clearly see her message, her requests, her graces.

We do not go on pilgrimage to Fatima just because, but rather because Our Lady of Schoenstatt and Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima calls us to this consecration: “It is the will of the Lord that devotion to my Immaculate Heart be extended and assured throughout the world. Jesus wants the whole world to consecrate itself also to my Heart. I will come and demand consecration to my Immaculate Heart. If they listen to my words, countless souls will be saved and there will be peace, but if they do not, and if they continue to offend the Lord, Divine Justice will impose new and heavy tribulations on them. In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph”.

We are going on this journey with the same objective as the little shepherds

As Father Joseph Kentenich told us, “God takes a new initiative in the person of Mary for today’s troubled, ailing and sick world. Our Lady has to show herself once again as the one who gives birth to Christ (…) There is no care that the Mother of God will not take to fulfill perfectly her present task in us and in today’s world!”

In Fatima, as in Schoenstatt, we are called to become apostles and, more than being transformed, we embark on this mission: to be, in the image of Mary, the light of Christ in the world and instruments of God. We take advantage of the preparation of the World Youth Day to remember (or get to know) the message of Fatima, beginning with the same objective of the little shepherds – the constant consecration of the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Other important events

Within the context of the WYD, before going to Fatima, the Boys’ Youth will gather in Gafanha, near Aveiro, to participate in Ignis, the international meeting of the Schoenstatt Boys’ Youth.

And the Girls’ Youth will begin their international encounter on July 28 in Lisbon.

On the 31st, after the pilgrimage to Fatima, all the youth will gather for the MTA Festival in Lisbon. After all this intense preparation, together with the youth of the world and Pope Francis, the WYD days of activity will take place from August 1st to 6th.

WYD 2023