Pope to receive cross signed by 10,000 Colombian youth
Bogotá, Colombia, 18 July 2013: During World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro next week,
Pope Francis will be presented with and bless a wooden cross signed by more than 10,000
youth from across 26 provinces of Colombia.
The Bishop of Rome agreed to receive
the cross after he was sent an eight-page letter from Maria Isabel Magana, the Colombian
coordinator of the Lewe Youth Movement. The youth movement takes its name, “Lewe,”
from the Afrikaans word meaning “life.”
The letter included photos of young
people with the cross and explained why they want to bring it to Brazil.
Archbishop
Octavio Ruiz Arenas, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization
and a Bogotá native, delivered the letter to the Holy Father.
In her letter,
Magana wrote that “after hearing your homily to young people on Sunday, April 28,
inviting them to ‘go against the tide, as that does the heart good,’ we decided we
should write you this letter.”
The movement hopes the cross will demonstrate
“the love and commitment of Colombian young people for the Church and the world.”
Magana
said the Lewe Youth were inspired by the first Colombian saint, Mother Laura Montoya,
who promoted the Carmelite tradition of putting a cross, rather than a crucifix, over
her bead so that in contemplating it “we might be the Christ who ascends the Cross
in order to give ourselves completely for others.”
The young people decided
that each signature would be a sign of the challenge to be another Christ on the cross.
“Young
people are crazy about following the steps of Jesus and being faithful to his Church,”
she explained.
The cross which will be gifted to Pope Francis is divided into
pieces, and will be taken to Brazil by twelve youth of the Lewe movement. They plan
to erect the cross at each of the main events of World Youth Day so that pilgrims
from across the world will be able to sign it as well.
“Tears come to my eyes
when I see the excitement with which the cross is received and how young people sign
it with such tenderness,” Magana related to Pope Francis in her letter.Source: CNA/EWTN