The Missionary Gesture initiative was created with the purpose of making each volunteer a missionary of World Youth Day (WYD) Lisbon 2023. To this end, each Volunteer Team Leader was invited to contact an institution to visit with their team tomorrow July 27th.

The Missionary Gesture has as its motto the theme of WYD Lisbon 2023 "Mary, got up and left in haste" (Lk 1:39), where young people are encouraged to go to meet the other, as Mary went to meet her cousin Isabel, by visiting institutions in the Diocese of Lisbon, Setúbal and Santarém. 

Of the 600 institutions to be visited, one is the Linhó Prison, which is intended for the accommodation of young adult convicts. Deacon José Noronha, responsible for the contact between World Youth Day and the prison, recalled the importance of these initiatives so that these young people remember that "they are not forgotten and that God is looking after them".

Furthermore, Deacon José Noronha recalled that these young people are "as young as any Volunteer and Pilgrim". "The Missionary Gesture, by coming here, allows us to bring a light of hope inside", he said. 

Letícia Lourenço, occupational therapist at Lar de São Vicente, in Alcabideche, reinforced one of the main reasons for this initiative: "the fact that there are people who cannot be physically present at the Journey, but there is this gesture that brings the Journey to them".

Paulo Paivas, spiritual assistant of the Hospitaller Sisters of Lisbon, also emphasised the human part of the meeting. According to him, this is an opportunity for young people "to have contact with a reality that is not always theirs". The Hospitaller Sisters of Lisbon care for people with mental illnesses, which are not always curable, and this contact is a step "towards understanding and demystification", emphasised Paulo Paivas. The spiritual assistant also believes that the missionary gesture "will bring a new life", which "will leave its fruits".

The interaction and joy that the young people will bring to the home recalls the importance of generational exchange and the request that the Holy Father made in his message on Grandparents' Day, that young people should visit their elders before they all meet in Lisbon.