“I am ready!” assures Pope Francis, backpack in hand, in a video sent to future World Youth Day (WYD) participants, on June 22, 2023. “Some people think that because of my illness I cannot go, but the doctor told me I can, so I will be with you,” he said, referring to his recent hospitalization for an intestinal hernia. WYD will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, from August 1 to 6.
“I already have everything. I can’t wait to go,” says the Pontiff, a big smile on his face, even though he has at times seems fatigued from his recent medical ordeal. The Pope was hospitalized for 10 days from June 7 to 16, after being operated for an intestinal hernia with risk of occlusion.
“Right now [WYD] is the point we need to look towards, where you young people need to look to. Onward! There are 40 days, like a Lent, until the Lisbon meeting,” the Pope said, encouraging Catholic youth around the world to get ready.
He asks them also to not “listen to those who reduce life to ideas” as they “have lost the joy of life and the joy of encounter.”
Instead the Pope asks the young people to speak with “the three languages of life”: of the head, of the heart, and of the hands. “The language of the head to think clearly about what we feel and do. The language of the heart to feel well, deeply, what we think and do. The language of the hands to realize what we feel and think,” he explained.
