QUEZON City, July 27, 2013—A Catholic priest stressed the need for local celebrations to be spiritually and physically prepared so young people would be more attentive and will remember the prestigious youth gathering in the local level.
Fr. Victor William Garcia, the executive director of the WYDRiotoCubao event said that coming up with this kind of celebration needs more preparation both physically and spiritually so young people would have a memorable experience of the local celebration.
Garcia also said that as organizers, they too need to focus on the concept and content of the celebration because some of their participants came from far dioceses and provinces like the archdioceses of Lipa in Batangas and San Fernando in Pampanga, dioceses of Cabanatuan in Nueva Ecija and Alaminos in Pangasinan.
“It seems that the diocese of Cubao became a melting pot of young people from different places far from the diocese in order to experience World Youth Day local level style. And we will let them experience it through activities during the overnight simultaneous celebration today and tomorrow like talks, Taize, confessions, and the closing mass,” Garcia added.
When asked about the sudden change of venue for the vigil with the Pope, Garcia shared that changing the venue of the overnight vigil in Rio de Janeiro because of bad weather does not affect the activities of the local celebration here in Cubao.
“We are still scheduled according to plan. Like our livestreaming with our official delegation in Brazil, it will still be retained and it is one of the highlights of this local celebration. Having this streaming will give our youth participants somewhat a first hand [experience] on real time happenings in Rio. This will create an interaction with our youth delegates there and other young participants in Rio as well as our own local participants,” Garcia furthered.
The diocese of Cubao organized a local WYD celebration that is slated today until tomorrow at the Ateneo de Manila University-Blue Eagle Gym with 5,000 young people attending from different parts of Metro Manila and Luzon. (Jandel Posion)
