The response to a weeklong Florida edition of World Youth Day, linking Miami’s Catholic young people to the official WYD celebrations in Lisbon, Portugal, was greater than anyone could have imagined, according to organizer Sister Alexia Zaldivar, a member of the Pierced Hearts who serves as committee chair of Miami’s Pastoral Juvenil Hispana (Hispanic Young Adult Ministry).

The delegation of Catholic young people who traveled to Lisbon along with Miami vocations director Father Matthew Gomez were regularly sending video highlights of their experience which the group in Homestead then watched on a large screen TV.

“We are able to be a part of the celebration from home. So I will definitely be doing this in the future,” Sister Alexia told the Florida Catholic, Miami’s archdiocesan news outlet. She noted that “the reality is that so many of our youth can’t (travel) but that doesn’t limit us” because social communications allows people today to be “connected more than ever.”

A repeat of the domestic festival is likely an ongoing option for 2027 as news broke Aug. 6 in Lisbon that the next edition of the international event will be in the distant city of Seoul, South Korea.

The Miami-based Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a religious community of men and women, joined the Pastoral Juvenil Hispana to sponsor the weeklong WYD festival in the Miami Archdiocese. Staged at parishes throughout the region, WYD Miami culminated in a weekend finale at a sprawling retreat space the Pierced Hearts maintain in Homestead, called the Land of the Pierced Hearts.

There were games, sports, Eucharistic adoration, a sacrament of reconciliation station, outdoor Masses, an hours-long walking pilgrimage in sweltering heat and a late-night concert featuring praise and worship bands during an overnight vigil.

Haitian and English-speaking youths and young adults also were part of the local WYD events.

Not to be outdone by their compatriots gathering simultaneously in Lisbon, Portugal, for the official WYD 2023 international gathering, some 200 South Florida teens and young adults added a surprise fireworks display to their own domestic edition of the Catholic youth festival.

“We always want to make sure our teens and youth have this opportunity even though they may not have the monetary means” to travel to the international WYD, said Judith Montalvan, a member of St. Joseph Parish in Miami Beach who serves as lay coordinator of the archdiocesan pastoral council for the Pastoral Juvenil Hispana.

“We created the same environment that you find at WYD here in Miami,” she added, noting that social media platforms were an effective way to reach local families but that still more are welcome at future events.

“I would say to families and parents of teens: Create the opportunity, the moments and experiences to open up and bring them out here for a life changing experience they will have in their hearts and memories for the rest of their lives,” Montalvan added.

Sister Alexia noted that the theme of the WYD Miami week was “encountering one another” and then ultimately “encountering Christ” through the all night Eucharistic adoration that led up to the closing outdoor Sunday Mass with Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski Aug. 6. At the same time, Pope Francis concluded the official WYD Lisbon event Aug. 1-6 by celebrating the closing Mass in Portugal.

Speaking of the Aug. 6 Gospel on Christ’s transfiguration, Archbishop Wenski in his homily described the account as an analogy for not a superficial external “makeover” but an internal spiritual transformation that the church and Pope Francis call young people to embrace during WYD.

“His ‘makeover’ on Mount Tabor tells us something about who Jesus is and what his mission was: He is the Son of Man who has come into the world to redeem the world through death and resurrection,” the archbishop said.

“And why would Jesus suffer and die? To make our own ‘make-over’ possible, not just superficial, on the outside, but on the inside, one that changes us and makes us sons and daughters of God,” Archbishop Wenski said. “And who wouldn’t want such a ‘makeover’ and who doesn’t need it? How can we transform ourselves? How can we transform the world?”

Even today, the archbishop continued, people rely too much on the love of power to transform themselves and others.

“However, Jesus tells us that the path to a true makeover is not through the love of power, but through the power of love,” he said.

“Peter would have liked to stay on Mount Tabor, and at times we have had similar ‘mountaintop experiences’ that we wish would never end, such as a time perhaps when God seemed particularly close to us or such as when we fell in love for the first time,” the archbishop said. “But then life calls us back to reality. Jesus tells us, as he told Peter, that we have to come down from the mountain.”

Brother Iñigo John Paul, one of the brothers of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts, noted that WYD’s founder, St. John Paul II, often told young people not to be afraid to be the “saints of the third millennium,” and the spirit of that message lives on in 2023.

“Some things are different and some the same as past WYDs: the youths’ thirst for something more, a thirst for God and Christ and a thirst to be who they were called to be and made to be — and that can only be done united to Christ,” Brother Iñigo told the Florida Catholic.

With the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and many other modern realities, many young people in general had become isolated, he added.

“You realize you are not alone. Youth may feel they are swimming against the tide, but they can see that together they can make a difference,” and that in Christ they can be who they were meant to be and enjoy Christian friendships with their peers.

“If anything, this pandemic has shown us that without the Lord we can do nothing, and I think the youth realize that it is a moment in history to make that choice: Are we going to come out stronger or not?” Brother Iñigo said. “This has brought the youth together and they have each other.”

Father Joseph Rogers, who in 2021 who became the first priest to join a new male branch of the Pierced Hearts religious community, was on hand to meet the young people and offer the sacrament of reconciliation throughout the weekend in Homestead.

“The church has a certain respect and admiration for the young and the young have a particular mission in the life of the church,” Father Rogers said.

“This time is among most important stages of their life when God will encourage them to ask fundamental questions and not to be afraid to ask the fundamental questions: What does God intend for their life? How can they live their life with so many difficulties and challenges today? And to trust that Christ is the one who has the answers to their questions,” Father Rogers said, adding that he attended the 2002 WYD in Toronto.

WYD is a visible sign that the church recognizes today’s young people face so many challenges and are often “overcome by depression, isolation, economic situations, family situations, immigration struggles; and they don’t know who to go to,” Father Rogers said.

Young adult Shalom Zambrano, a member of the Pastoral Juvenil Hispana who is close to the Pierced Hearts community, said she has never been to WYD and would like to have gone to Lisbon.

“I always wanted to be at one so this is the next best thing,” Zambrano said. “We feel part of a family here, that we are not alone and that there is someone next to us who could not go to Lisbon but we can make this event here,” she said. “I have made many new friends. My goal here is to get closer to Jesus and know his will for my life.”

Maria Laura Restrepo, a member of St. Dominic Parish in Miami and a recent graduate of Johns Hopkins University who is now studying to be a physician’s assistant, said the WYD Miami event was built on the premise that teens and young adults have their own place in the church.

“I am excited to see a lot of youth here and to learn more about the faith and knowing that they are not alone and they are not the only ones walking on this journey towards their faith and to discern God’s will for them,” said Restrepo, who also is part of a lay branch of the Pierced Hearts community.

Tom Tracy is a correspondent for the Florida Catholic, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Miami.