Lisbon World Youth Day 2023
The World Youth Day in Lisbon will take place between August 1 and 6, 2023
Explanation of the WYD Lisbon 2023 logo
The logo of the World Youth Day Lisbon 2023, inspired by the theme “Mary got up and left without delay” (Lk 1, 39), has the Cross as its central element. This is crossed by a path where the Holy Spirit appears. It is an invitation to young people not to conform and to be protagonists in the construction of a more just and fraternal world. The colors (green, red and yellow) evoke the Portuguese flag.
Cross
The Cross of Christ, a sign of God’s infinite love for humanity, is the central element from which everything is born.
Road
As the account of the Visitation on the theme of WYD Lisbon 2023 indicates, Mary leaves, sets out to live the will of God and offers herself to serve Elizabeth. This movement signals the invitation made to young people to renew “inner strength, dreams, enthusiasm, hope and generosity” (Christus Vivit, 20). Along the way, there is also a dynamic shape that evokes the Holy Spirit.
rosary beads
The use of the rosary celebrates the spirituality of the Portuguese people in their devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. It is placed on the path to invoke the pilgrimage experience that is so marked in Portugal.
Maria
Mary was designed young to represent her figure as she is portrayed in the Gospel of Saint Luke (Lk 1,39) and to promote a greater identification with young people. The drawing expresses the youth of her age, characteristic of someone who has not yet been a mother, but who carries within herself the light of the world. The figure appears slightly inclined, to show the determined attitude of the Virgin Mary.
“Mary got up and left without delay” (Lk 1, 39)
is the biblical quote chosen by Pope Francis as the motto of the XXVIII World Youth Day, which will take place for the first time in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. The biblical phrase (a quote from the Gospel of Saint Luke) opens the account of the Visitation (Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth), a biblical episode that follows the Annunciation (the angel’s announcement to Mary that she would be the mother of the Son of God, which was the theme of the last WYD in Panama).
In his conversation with Mary at the Annunciation, the angel also tells her that her cousin, an old woman considered barren, was pregnant. It is then that Mary, after telling the angel: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1, 38), sets out on the road to Ein Karem, a village near Jerusalem, where Elizabeth lived while awaited the birth of John, who would become Saint John the Baptist.
Mary of Nazareth is the great figure of the Christian path, who teaches us to say yes to God. She was the protagonist of the last edition of WYD and she will also be in Lisbon.
In the biblical episode of the Visitation, the action of getting up presents Mary simultaneously as a woman of charity and as a missionary woman. Leaving without delay sums up the attitude expressed by Pope Francis in his instructions for WYD Lisbon 2023: “May the evangelization of young people be active and missionary, who will also recognize and be witnesses to the presence of the living Christ.”
Addressing especially young people, challenging them to be courageous missionaries, the Pope writes in the Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit: “Where is Jesus sending us? There are no borders, there are no limits: he sends us all. The Gospel is not for some but for all”
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