Next Monday, August 7, they will gather from the five continents, along with several cardinals and bishops.

The Neocatechumenal Way, as traditional during the World Youth Days, will hold a Vocational Meeting on the occasion of WYD Lisbon 2023. It will take place next Monday, August 7, at 4:30 p.m. (GMT +1) at the Promenade of Algés. More than 75,000 young people from all over the world will participate, who will have accompanied Pope Francis during the week-long celebration of the Days.

The Meeting of the Way will be lead by the responsible international team, composed of its initiator, Kiko Argüello, Father Mario Pezzi and María Ascensión Romero.

It will be presided over by the Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal Manuel Clemente. The Kerygma, the Good News of the death and resurrection of Christ, will be preached and a vocational call will be made to those young people who feel called by the Lord to religious life, the itinerant mission or the priesthood.

For four years, since WYD in Panama, the young people of the Way have been preparing to go on pilgrimage to Lisbon. In the days leading up to the Holy Father’s arrival and as he passes through different countries and cities, they will evangelize, bearing witness to their encounter with the Lord. As Pope Francis often repeats, taking the words of Benedict XVI, “the Church does not grow by proselytism, but by attraction”.

These days prior to the WYD in Lisbon and the Vocational Encounter have coincided with the seventh anniversary of the death of Carmen Hernandez, co-initiator of the Neocatechumenal Way together with Kiko Arguello. On July 19, the day of the anniversary, thousands of these young people celebrated the Eucharist for the soul of Carmen in parishes all over the world, asking the Lord to hasten her Cause of Beatification and Canonization.

Young people from many nations, passing through Madrid on their way to Lisbon, are visiting the tomb of Carmen Hernandez. The Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Madrid is already experiencing in anticipation the joy of WYD, with the presence of so many young people grateful to the Lord for the gift of Carmen’s life and her love for the mission and the Church.