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Adventure of building bridges and tearing down walls
08.08.2016
125 000 pilgrims travelling to World Youth Days in Cracow from 50 countries visited the church of Infant Jesus
2 million youth participated in the World Youth Days in Cracow Poland in July and August 2016. Dozens of thousands visited the church of Infant Jesus on their way to or from Cracow. The devotion to Infant Jesus, resembled by the statue of Infant Jesus of Prague, is spread around the world, in particular in Latin America.
The church of Infant Jesus became an open spiritual gate of Prague. Young people from all around the world celebrated here the holy mass 200 times during the three weeks between 16th July and 7th August. The groups of pilgrims came from Brasil, Philippines, India, Equador, Korea, Libanon, Kuwait, Benin and other in total 50 countries of all continents. They enabled to experience an unique atmosphere of “building bridges and tearing down walls, barriers and barbed wire”, upon which pope Francis called in Cracow, to each other and to all church comers.
125 000 people came to the church in total and met each other in a living liturgy celebrated together or in a symbolic way through 27 000 messages which they left. The sheets with their messages will remain in the church of Infant Jesus in the following weeks as a remembrance of the faith in “a new humanity, one that rejects hatred between peoples, one that refuses to see borders as barriers and can cherish its own traditions without being self-centred or small-minded.” (Homily of His Holiness Pope Francis, Mass for World Youth Day, Krakow, Campus Misericordiae, 31 July 2016. Zdroj: Radio Vaticana)
Photogallery on Facebook.
