Marco Carvalho
Around three dozen young pilgrims from Macau will travel to Rome in summer, to take part in the Jubilee of Youth. The event is the crowning moment of a pilgrimage that also includes visits to Lourdes and Assisi.
First Lisbon, now Rome. In 2023, over 50 local young Catholics visited Portugal to take part in the 37th World Youth Day, joining 1.5 million pilgrims from all around the world. Now, the Diocesan Youth Commission is organizing a pilgrimage to Rome. The aim? Allow thirty Macau young adults to attend the Jubilee of Youth. The event, which will be held from July 28 to August 3 as part of the celebrations of the Jubilee Year of Hope, offers the participants an opportunity for celebration, social participation and spiritual growth.
The participation in the Jubilee of Youth will be the crowning moment of the expedition to Italy that the Diocesan Youth Commission is currently planning. The organization aims to recruit young people aged 18 to 30, unlike what happened in the summer of 2023, when students as young as 14 travelled to Lisbon to take part in the World Youth Day: “We are planning to bring together a group of 30 to 40 young adults to join the Jubilee of Youth, next Summer. Although they might look similar, the World Youth Day and the Jubilee of Youth are quite different events, targeting different age groups. This time, we aim to attract young adults aged 18 to 30. There is, nevertheless, another reason, for that. We are well aware that young students do not have the required availability to take part in this sort of activities at the height of summer”, the deputy director of the Diocesan Youth Commission, Tammy Chio, told “O Clarim”. “We will organize other activities directed to high school students and to those that won’t be able to travel to Rome. There are two churches in the Diocese of Macau – the chapel of Our Lady of Penha and Saint Joseph’s Seminary and Church – that were designated as pilgrimage site as part of the Jubilee Year and we are planning to organize a pilgrimage to both places in early November”, Mrs. Chio adds.
The Dicastery for Evangelization, the entity in charge of organizing the Jubilee, expects roughly 30 to 32 million pilgrims to pass through the Italian capital during the Holy Year. Pope Francis grants a special ‘indulgence’ or remission of the sins to the faithful who go on pilgrimage to the four papal basilicas in Rome or that take part in acts of charity, such as caring for the sick or visiting prisoners.
Macau’s young pilgrims will travel to Italy in the end of July and remain in Europe until the 8th of August. The expedition to Rome is being organized around the participation in the Jubilee of Youth, but it’s not bound by the event. The group will also visit Lourdes, in southwestern France, and Assissi, in central Italy:
“In addition to Rome, we are also travel to France, to visit the Sanctuary of Lourdes. In Italy, we are planning to go to Assisi. Carlo Acutis will be canonized this year and we want to visit some of the places where the Eucharistic Miracles that he listed in his website took place”, Tammy Chio Chu Cheng reveals. “The journey to Rome, nevertheless, is still in a very preliminary stage. Only by the end of the month, before the Lunar New Year, we will know for sure the exact number of people that will take part in the pilgrimage”, the deputy-director of the Diocesan Youth Commission adds.
In celebration of the Year of Jubilee, Pope Francis has announced a special Jubilee for youth, inviting the next generation of Catholics to join together in shared faith, hope and Christian joy. The 2025 Jubilee of Youth will begin on July 29th, with the celebration of a welcome Mass at St. Peter´s Basilica. Over the following four days, young people from all over the world will participate in cultural, artistic and spiritual activities throughout Rome. A penitential day will be observed on August 1st, at the Circus Maximus. The following day, Pope Francis will preside over a vigil at Tor Vergata. The campus of the University of Rome Tor Vergata will host the closing ceremony of the Jubilee of Youth, on August 3rd.
Follow
