Panama City (Panama). World Youth Day (WYD) in Panama 2019 began on the afternoon of 22 January 2019, with the Eucharistic Celebration presided by the Archbishop of Panama, Monsignor José Domingo Ulloa.
The opening Mass was held on the Cinta Costera promenade with the participation of about 75 thousand pilgrims. It was a time of great celebration and deep faith.
Present were Mother General, Sr. Yvonne Reungoat, FMA and young people from different Salesian realities.
The protagonists, as has been happening for over 30 years at every WYD, are the young people coming from 156 different countries. Given the time of year and the distance from Europe, it is a WYD that speaks Spanish. There are many young people from South America, many Poles, and from the USA, Canada, Australia, and the Far East, along with a few but festive Italians as usual.
And it is precisely the young who are most fascinating for those who meet them on the street. They are all beautiful, smiling, joyful, cheerful, infectious, and very engaging. Despite the heat, the hardships of long walking, tiredness, difficulties, and endless police checks, these young people are a living testimony of how we can really be different and be able to go against the current.
In his homily, Msgr. Ulloa greeted the young people from many countries who together dream that a new World and a new Church are possible.
“Thank you dear young people because you, in spite of all the difficulties, knew how to jump over the rocks and desired to gather in this little town, in this little Church, which we can say today becomes the Youth Capital. To speak of young people means to speak of hope, because the real protagonists of the changes and transformations that humanity and the Church require are in their hands, in their abilities, and in their vision of a better world”.
