WYD2016: Logo and prayer launched

(Vatican Radio) In two years’ time, the city of Krakow, Poland, will host tens of thousands of young people for the next edition of the World Youth Day. But preparations are already well underway. On Thursday, the Archbishop of the Diocese, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, unveiled the official logo and prayer for the festival of faith.

Emer McCarthy reports:

 “Blessed are the merciful for they will have mercy shown them”, this verse from the Gospel of Matthew is the official theme for the Krakow gathering in 2016 and it also inspires both the logo and prayer. 

The logo is a central Cross from which rays of blue and red shine forth representing the blood and water that spilled from Christ's side as depicted in the image of Divine Mercy by St. Faustina Kowalska.  This was an image particularly dear to one of Krakow’s greatest sons, St. John Paul II, who established the feast of Divine Mercy on  the Sunday in the octave of Easter. The rays embrace a young person in an outline reminiscent of the map of Poland.

The logo was designed by Monika Rybczynska a 28 year old student of communications, who designed following the canonization of St. John Paul II, in thanksgiving. 

Instead the official WYD prayer is divided into three parts: the first entrusts every human being, especially young people, to Divine Mercy. The second asks the Lord for the grace of a merciful heart; the third seeks the intercession of the Virgin Mary and St. John Paul II, who is also patron of World Youth Day.

In his daily tweet on Thursday Pope Francis’ thoughts also focused on young people, who he urged never to give up on their dreams of a more just world.