2023 World Youth Day, Portugal August 1-6, 2023

Mark your calendars for World Youth Day celebrated August 1-6, 2023.  Check the official website frequently for updated information. Registration is now open. More information about the vocation fair in the "City of Joy" and to register is here. A WYD leader's guidebook is available here.

Please email debbiesscm@nrvc.net if you are an NRVC member who will be at World Youth Day to add to the list below. 

NRVC Religious Institutes at World Youth Day

Did you know that 17% of newer entrants who entered religious life between 2003-2018 attended World Youth Day before they entered? Also, 95% of newer entrants to religious life rated meeting with a member(s) of the religious institute as most helpful in discerning their call to religious life. Consider contacting religious communities before you leave for World Youth Day to ask for their prayers throughout your pilgrimage. While in Portugal, get together with some of these communities who will also be there to learn more about consecrated life and vocation discernment.  

Augustinians of the Assumption/Assumptionists

Congregation of Sisters of Bon Secours

Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (ACI)/Esclavas del Sagrado Corazón

Sisters of the Good Shepherd

USA East Province of the Society of Jesus

Take our Quiz and Prepare for World Youth Day. Take the VISION spirituality quiz and consider your results an invitation to know yourself better and explore different forms of prayer, worship, meditation, and ways of living.

To learn more about consecrated life, community life, and the vows, check out this list of religious institutes. You can view links to their websites and social media platforms to expand your knowledge.  

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.

Learn more about prayer and discernment at VISION Vocation Network.org

USCCB support

The United States, through the USCCB, will be providing support materials for leaders through guidebooks and its web page.  Click here to view a video on preparing for WYD and for the power point slides. The USCCB has information on hosting stateside events here. A leader's guidebook is also available.

The WYDUSA office invites you to join the next Lisbon 2023 Leaders webinar, on March 29, 11 am ET. We will discuss safety and security while on the ground in Lisbon and traveling. 

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

As we prepare for World Youth Day, let us join together in praying the official 2023 World Youth Day 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.