Young pilgrims share enthusiasm ahead of WYD prayer vigil

(Vatican Radio) Young pilgrims from around the world have been gathering since early on Saturday at an outdoor venue in Krakow called the Campus Misericordiae, or Field of Mercy, for an evening prayer vigil. The event marks the penultimate celebration that Pope Francis is leading for the 31st World Youth Day, culminating in a Sunday morning concluding Mass.

The venue contains two new charitable centres, a day care for the elderly and a storage building for food parcels donated by local parishes for those most in need. Both buildings will be blessed during the Mass and were constructed as a permanent reminder of the theme for this year’s World Youth Day: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy’.

Our correspondent in Krakow, Lydia O’Kane caught up with some of the pilgrims waiting to take part in the evening prayer vigil. As loudspeakers directed the crowds to their designated areas, Lydia spoke to Greg, a Londoner attending his fifth world youth day, to Rebecca from Sussex in the south of England and to Greg, a teacher from Sydney, who’d been queuing outside the venue since early in the morning….

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