January 28, 2016, 7:34a.m. – CEBU CITY – THE FIFTH day of the 51st International Eucharistic Congress will be focused on the youth, with a series of activities lined up including a youth-themed catechesis by popular speaker and author Robert Barron, Los Angeles auxiliary bishop.
Bishop Barron’s catechesis, titled “Christ in the Youth, Our Hope of Glory,” will be held at Hoops Dome in Lapu-Lapu City. At the congress proper last Jan. 26, he delivered a catechesis discussing the Eucharist as a celebration of the Paschal Mystery.
The bishop’s talk will be followed by an overnight vigil led by “America’s Got Talent” finalist Paul Ponce and his family at Mandani Bay in Mandaue City. There will be a Eucharistic celebration at 4 a.m. on Friday.
Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle will also be giving a catechesis, titled “The Eucharist and the Dialogue with Cultures,” at the IEC Pavillion on the same day. It will be followed by a testimony from Kei-ichi Sugawara, a pastoral worker who will give a first-hand account of the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011.
A deaf track will be led by Laureen Lynch Ryan and Frankie Berry. Ryan is the coordinator of the Office of Deaf Ministry of the Archdiocese of Washington, while Berry is a member of Ireland’s National Chaplaincy for the Deaf.
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines president, will lead penitential rites.
Day 5 of the IEC will end with a Visita Iglesia in seven city churches. Krystel Nicole A. Sevilla