WYD Rio de Janeiro 2013

It all began with a crazy idea. In September 2012 a new parish priest had arrived at the parish and, during that year, a Saturday-afternoon youth club had been born with four families from the neighbourhood. There were no more than fifteen of them, aged from 12 to 35, when they started thinking about crossing the ocean to go to World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro. Time was against them and everything was still to be done, but they trusted that the money and the arrangements would work out. In the end 26 pilgrims gathered at the parish of Sant Mateu, almost strangers to one another. On 21 July 2013, at the sending-off Mass, each of them had a cross hung around their neck so that they would keep Jesus in mind during the journey. They were accompanied by the letters of St Edith Stein, who asked them to call on Our Lady.

Fátima, Charlotte and Rio

The first stop was Fátima. They arrived late at night, greeted Our Lady and stayed one more day to learn the story of the three little shepherds. Then a flight to Charlotte, in the United States, with a long layover that allowed them to visit the city and celebrate Mass, and a second flight to Rio. Maria still remembers that day, the longest of her life, and the surprise as they left the airport: in the city where she had imagined an eternal summer it was pouring with rain, and they had only brought summer clothes.

Front row

That week they went everywhere the Holy Father went. On the Wednesday, after waiting for at least two hours amid elbowing and shoving, a group of young people in front of them stepped aside so that the youngest of the group could stand in the front row at the barrier. It wasn’t the only gesture: some nuns gave them breakfast every day, let them celebrate Mass in their community and lent them warm clothes; a group of young people gave them space in a sports centre, and people they didn’t know had made donations so that the trip could go ahead.

On 26 July they walked up Corcovado, along a very steep street lined with favelas. At the top, at the feet of Christ the Redeemer, the views were spectacular, and as it was starting to get dark they came down the mountain praying the rosary.

Copacabana

On the day of the vigil they found a spot on Copacabana beach early in the morning and passed the time with songs, games of cards and times of prayer. When the popemobile went past, Maria recalls, “the Pope turns, looks at us, waves to us and smiles at all of us. At each one of us”. They slept on the beach under the starry sky and the next day they took part in the closing Mass. Marina, who had gone there just after turning thirteen, realised there for the first time that she was not alone: the beach was so full that “you couldn’t have squeezed in a pin”.

The ending was unexpected. An overbooking problem at the airport meant they couldn’t all fly back together, and after days of sleeping on the floor in a true pilgrim spirit they ended up in a four-star hotel in Copacabana.

A seed

Ten years later, Marina summed it up like this: “that trip was the beginning of a seed the Lord planted in me, which little by little has been bearing fruit”. Maria added what she had discovered by living for others: that it doesn’t take your joy away, but gives it to you. And the group’s newsletter recalled it in 2026: “that trip to Rio wasn’t paid for by the accounts, it was paid for by the knees of many people who prayed for us without ever having set foot in Brazil”.