The prayer is addressed to Our Lady of the Visitation.
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The official prayer for World Youth Day 2023 (WYD), to be held in Lisbon, was given by the Holy See Press Office on November 22.
On the same day, a delegation of young people from Portugal received the “symbols” of the World Youth Day—the WYD Cross and a reproduction of the Marian icon Salus populi romani—at the end of the Mass for the Feast of Christ the King in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
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Official prayer of the WYD 2023
Our Lady of the Visitation,
you who left in haste towards the mountain to meet Elizabeth,
lead us also to meet all those who await us
to deliver them the living Gospel:
Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord!
We will go in a hurry, with no distraction or delay,
but with readiness and joy.
We will go peacefully, because those who take Christ take peace,
and welldoing is the best wellbeing.
Our Lady of the Visitation,
with your inspiration, this World Youth Day
will be the mutual celebration of the Christ we take, as You once did.
Make it a time of testimony and sharing,
fraternization, and giving thanks,
each of us looking for the others who always wait.
With you, we will continue on this path of gathering,
so that our world will gather as well,
in fraternity, justice and peace.
Help us,
Our Lady of the Visitation,
to bring Christ to everyone, obeying the Father, in the love of the Spirit!
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In a statement accompanying this prayer, Archbishop José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta, archbishop of Panama, expressed the meaning of this exchange of the cross and image of Mary, a tradition whereby representatives of the previous host country pass the cross and icon to representatives of the upcoming host country.
During the preparation for WYD 2019, this cross and icon “allowed us to meet Jesus and others,” he said, hoping that Portuguese youth can have the same experience. Unable to be present in Rome because of the pandemic, he said he was united “to the joy of the world’s youth” on the occasion of this exchange between the two delegations.
