Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Cologne (Agenzia Fides) - It is estimated that as many as one million young people will travel to Cologne in Germany for the 20th World Youth Day in 2005, an event which is being carefully prepared by young Christians all over Germany.
As part of a year of preparation being lived as a “Way of the Cross” in every Germany diocese, a youth prayer book, titled simply ‘Pray’, was recently issued for nation-wide use. The prayers were composed by young people for young people. Using the theme of the Day “We have come to adore Him” Mt 2.2, the young people composed prayers on the identity (We) of Christians, their relationship with Christ and efforts for social commitment. The prayers are meant for individual and community prayer and for Christians of different confessions. It also has a section of the prayer of the Rosary.
In the preface, Bishop Franz-Josef Hermann Bode, Bishop of Osnabrück and the Catholic German Bishops’ delegate for Youth Pastoral writes: “Prayer is a surprise! We are not alone… God knocks on the door… and this is clear from the prayers contained in this book composed by many young people in preparation for Youth Day 2005. The prayers are inspiring and sometimes challenging. To ‘pray and ask, to ask and pray’ is to find the answer in God”.
The prayer book, which is offered as company for young people aged between 15 and 30 along the Way of the Cross, was produced in collaboration with religious orders in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and also the head of the media office of Missio Aachen, the Pontifical Mission Societies in Germany Klaus Vellguth. For more information see http://www.pray-das-buch.de/.
In the meantime the march towards the event in Cologne 2005 proceeds: in Berlin on April 4, during Palm Sunday Mass, presided by Cardinal Georg Sterzinsky Archbishop of Berlin, the Youth Cross which has travelled the world since the first Youth Day in 1986, will be handed over by youth from Sarajevo to German youth who will carry it through every diocese in the country, ending up in Cologne in August 2005.
(MS) (Agenzia Fides, 22/3/2004 - 30 righe, 345 parole)
