Prepare for 2023 World Youth Day in Lisbon

Mark your calendars for World Youth Day celebrated August 1-6, 2023. Check the official website frequently for updated information. 

Prepare for your pilgrim journey with Take Five for Faith: Daily meditations for busy Catholics. 

Sign up for the free Take Five daily email here.

Other resources for the young church

YOUTH MINISTERS: Learn more about the resources NRVC has available to help you in your youth engagement. Click here.

PILGRIMS: Consider where God may be calling you.  

Learn more about prayer and discernment (See VISION's article index).

History of WYD

Since 1986, World Youth Day (WYD) is a gathering of young Catholics from all over the world with the Pope. It is also a pilgrimage, a celebration of youth, an expression of the universal Church and an intense moment of evangelization for the youth world. 

Motto for 2023

"Mary arose and went with haste" (Lk 1:39) is the scriptural quote chosen by Pope Francis as the motto of the XXVIII World Youth Day that will be held for the first time in the capital city of Lisbon, Portugal. The biblical phrase opens the account of the Visitation (Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth), a biblical episode following the Annunciation (the angel’s announcement to Mary that she would be the mother of the Son of God, and the theme of the last WYD, in Panama).  

Theme song

The World Youth Day Lisbon 2023 theme song, entitled “Há Pressa no Ar”, was released in January 2021. The song, inspired on the WYD Lisbon 2023 theme "Mary rose up and went with haste" (LK 1:39), is about the ‘yes’ of Mary and about her rush to meet her cousin Elizabeth.

Pope's Message

“Mary arose and went with haste” (Lk 1:39)

“Dear Young People!

The theme of the Panama World Youth Day was, “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). After that event, we resumed our journey towards a new destination – Lisbon 2023 – with hearts afire with God’s urgent summons to arise. In 2020, we meditated on Jesus’s words: “Young man, I say to you, arise!” (Lk 7:14). Last year too, we were inspired by the figure of the Apostle Paul, to whom the Risen Lord said: “Arise! I appoint you as a witness of what you have seen” (cf. Acts 26:16). Along the route we still need to travel before arriving in Lisbon, we will have at our side the Virgin of Nazareth who, immediately after the Annunciation, “arose and went with haste” (Lk 1:39). Common to these three themes is the word: “arise!” It is a word that also – let us remember – speaks to us of getting up from our slumber, waking up to the life all around us.

In these troubling times, when our human family, already tested by the trauma of the pandemic, is racked by the tragedy of war, Mary shows to all of us, and especially to you, young people like herself, the path of proximity and encounter. I hope and I firmly believe that the experience many of you will have in Lisbon next August will represent a new beginning for you, the young, and – with you – for humanity as a whole.

Read more here.

WYD Prayer

Our Lady of the Visitation,  
you who arose and went with 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! Amen.