14 our everyday lives. However, we return home changed by the experience with a mission to bring the lessons learned during the journey into our daily routine, our relationships, and interactions with one another. The destination to which Jesus shared with Peter, James, and John was the entirety of the journey. It can be tempting to limit the Transfiguration experience to the glorious moments at the peak (like the week or two in Portugal), but the pathways up and down the hill are just as memorable— and critical—to the full experience of pilgrimage. The goal of World Youth Day, then, is not simply making it to Lisbon. Instead, the true goal of WYD is that every pilgrim has a complete encounter with the Lord through the journey alongside the universal Church. Pope Francis has called you, just as Jesus called the Apostles, to join him on this pilgrimage to, during, and from World Youth Day 2023. Where do we go from here? Like Peter, James, and John at the Transfiguration, World Youth Day provides pilgrims with a mountaintop experience, and they may want it to last forever. The disciples expressed a strong desire to stay at the top of the mountain, basking in the radiance of the Lord’s Transfiguration. Yet, as Jesus reminded Peter, James, and John, he reminds pilgrim travelers today that they cannot live on mountaintop experiences alone. The exhilaration of the WYD celebration can quickly fizzle, no matter how fantastic it has been. Yet returning to life’s normal daily routines after WYD does not mean everything is finished; rather, leaving WYD is just the beginning of the next phase of a lifelong journey of faith. In Luke’s account of the Transfiguration, when Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah about the work that still needed to be accomplished in Jerusalem. WYD, in much the same way, can give you direction and formation for the tasks which lay ahead of you upon your return home and throughout your lifetime. It
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