World Youth Day - Portugal

  Bom Dia!        Today we finally got a chance to sleep in for the first time this pilgrimage so far. However I’m not so sure we all took advantage of that because of the festa last night. We began with mass at 10:30 this morning with the local parishioners of Cortes and the mass was mainly said in Portuguese but of course the homily, the Gospel and a few other parts were said in the different languages of the people staying in Cortes.       While this isn’t our last day with our host families, we said goodbye to them after mass and were given gifts from them (magnets of world youth day) and at least in my experience, it was quite difficult to say bye. Tomorrow we really do say goodbye as we head to Lisbon for the World Youth Day events. The families here in Cortes have been so grateful and wonderful to all of us, making sure that we all have the best experience possible while also encountering Christ along the way. I realized just how much ...

         Today was filled to the brim with so much fun and joy! With several host families driving the pilgrims in separate cars, we started off the day making our way to the site for today’s event called “Leira Faith n Fun” day. Here, we started the day off right by attending   10:30am   Mass in a park with a large stage. An hour before Mass even began, other pilgrims also staying in the diocese of Leira-Fatima, were already beginning to gather in the park! That provided the opportunity to chat and exchange trading items with them. But today was only just a “taste” of how things will be during the official World Youth Day week.         At Leira-Fatima Faith n Fun, the were about 7,500 pilgrims spanning 50 countries in attendance! Alongside the thousands of pilgrims, several dozen priests and bishops processed into the Mass. Several languages were also represented as seen where each reading and the gospel were announced in different...

Bon dia!  Our time in Portugal has not been very long, but we’ve certainly made the most of it! Our third full day here started with a bus ride to a local monastery. Its name was Batalha, and it’s one of the most beautiful monasteries I’ve been lucky enough to visit. And part of it wasn’t even completely finished!  From there we rode to a small town with a name that meant “place of bears”. There were no bears. We spent a good while in both locations, and each one felt like we were in a fairytale. And to make a great day even better, we left there to attend mass in the beautiful city of Fatima. The statues, the church, the basilica, and everything else was overwhelming in the truest sense of the word. The number of people walking on their knees along the pathway while praying the rosary let me know I was not alone in this feeling. To wrap up this blessed day, we held a candlelight procession with the whole town. Walking the streets of Cortes, hearing song and prayer in all diff...