“I am your merciful Mother, the Mother of all who love me, of those who cry to me, of those who have confidence in me. . . Am I not here, I who am your Mother? Are you not under the shadow of my protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need?"

- Our Lady to Juan Diego at Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe is also a Patron Saint of Youth 2000.  In the image at Guadalupe, Our Lady is pregnant.  She accompanies her Son and continually points to Him and intercedes that humanity will turn back to Him.  When 3 million people left the Church in Europe at the time of the Reformation, at the same time 9 million people were converted following Our Lady’s appearance at Guadalupe.

We imitate Our Blessed Mother in her complete trust, belief and receptivity to God.  At the annunciation Our Blessed Mother responded to the Angel Gabriel’s announcement that she would bear Jesus into the world in complete trust, obedience and humility: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word.’  Luke 1:38 We too, as we completely surrender ourselves to God’s action through the Holy Spirit, allow God to bear fruit in our lives:  bringing Christ to the world.  Following the example of Our Lady, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit and Star of the New Evangelisation, we unite ourselves more closely to the love of the Trinity and proclaim this love to the world, turning often to prayer to ‘ponder these things in our heart’ and receive renewed strength from the Lord.

One of the ways we ‘ponder on these things’ is through the rosary, which is a particular devotion of Youth 2000:

“The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer…it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium.  It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.”  [1].

“For many young people, the practice of praying the rosary is either a dim memory, or something only encountered in the lives of the saints… Through the rosary, which is prayed each day during the retreat, the young people come to discover the treasury of wisdom that Our Lady has kept in her heart for each of her children. In this way the young people can discover through and with Our Lady that Jesus loves them with a very special love that can overcome all problems. It is also a daily concrete practice which young people can easily adopt and continue upon return home from the retreat.” [2]