At the center of the official logo of the 2019 World Youth Day, which will be held at Panama City from January 22-27, 2019, is the figure of the Virgin Mary.
The new logo, which in part takes up the colors of the national flag of Panama –-red and blue –, was presented on Saturday, May 13, by the organizing Archdiocese, which during a Vigil of Prayer also received the two symbols of the WYD: the pilgrim cross and the copy of the icon of Virgin “Salus Populi Romani.”
A jury of experts in graphic design and marketing selected from 103 projects presented, that of 20-year-old Panamanian Ambar Calvo, an Architecture student.
Explaining her project, the author said she wished to show “the tenderness and trust of Mary” at the moment of her total giving of herself, namely, her “fiat.” The theme of the 34th WYD is in fact Mary’s answer to the Angel: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38).
Inserted in the logo is the Panama Canal, which symbolizes “pilgrims’” way through Mary to find Jesus, and, in addition, the Isthmus of Panama, the pilgrim’s cross, and the figure of Mary herself at the moment of her “yes,” explains a press release. Five white points represent both Mary’s crown as well as pilgrims from all the five Continents.
As Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa Mendieta of Panama said, the winning project “succeeded in gathering the message that we wish to send to the young people of the world: the smallness of our country and the grandeur of our heart, open to all, without any exclusion, by the hand of the Virgin Mary, a model of courageous youth, committed and generous, who was able to say ‘yes’ to God’s call.”
The Panamanian Archbishop described young people as “the moral and human reserve of our societies and of the Church herself,” because they are “capable of transforming everything positively, taking risks as adolescent Mary of Nazareth did, if we are able to teach them to love as Jesus did with us.”
