After a busy day, the morning of Thursday, August 3, began calmly for the Rector Major of the Salesians. In the morning, he visited the City of Joy and the stands of the Salesian Family.
Ángel Fernández Artime, accompanied by the Provincial of Portugal and Cape Verde, José Aníbal Mendonça, and by the Councillors for Formation, Fr Ivo Coelho, Fr Juan Carlos Godoy, from the Mediterranean Region, and Fr Hector Romero, from America Southern Cone, visited Belém and the City of Joy, where the Vocation Fair and the Forgiveness Park of World Youth Day 2023 are concentrated. This is the space where Pope Francis will confess some young pilgrims tomorrow, in one of the 150 confessionals installed in the Park of Forgiveness.
The group visited some tourist sites in the Belém area. Inês Osório, History teacher, Nuno Santos, Portuguese and Spanish teacher, and Sandra Marques, English teacher, all teachers of the Salesians of Lisbon, served as tour guides and translators for the entourage, providing historical and architectural context.
This was followed by a visit to the City of Joy, a space that aims to provide an encounter between young people and the Church in its different expressions: religious orders, communities, movements and associations, and where the Salesian Family was represented by the Salesians of Don Bosco, the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and Canção Nova.
Once again, the Rector Major was approached numerous times by young people from various parts of the world who took advantage of the meeting to take some photos and share the experience of World Youth Day.
In the space dedicated to the Salesians and Daughters of Mary Help of Christians at the Vocations Fair, the Rector Major and Mother General, Sr. Chiara Cazzuola, wrote messages to the thousands of young people, Salesians and others, who have spent and will spend these days there.
“My dear young people,” wrote Fr Ángel, “be happy by realizing your lives starting from God, always with Him and living with true love”.
Mother Chiara also visited the site, and narrowly missed the Rector Major, on the panel that shows the evolution of the Congregation over the years she wrote: “Dear young people, I wish, with Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello, that you be happy in time and in eternity. Listen to the voice of Jesus and follow him without fear. May Mary be your help and your guide”.
