With the motto “Let the children come to me”, and the objective that the little ones can “continue discovering their best friend in Jesus the Eucharist”, from October 11 to 13 it will take place in the town of Tortugas, in the Argentine province of Santa Fe, the III National Meeting of Worshiping Children.
Father Mariano Santesteban, parish vicar of Nuestra Señora del Valle, in Tortugas, host of the meeting, explained to ACI Prensa that approximately 350 people are expected to participate.
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Among the communities that confirmed their presence are Resistencia, Villa Ángela, Las Garcitas, Tres Isletas, from the province of Chaco; while children from Concordia will attend from Entre Ríos; and from Córdoba, from Laboulaye and Sampacho. Delegations will also arrive from Tandil, province of Buenos Aires; and from the province of Santa Fe the towns of Funes, María Susana and the towns of Tortugas will be present.
During the meeting there will be moments of prayer and adoration, explained Father Santesteban, “We are going to pray a luminous rosary at night, a workshop on emotions, and the closing Mass on Sunday will be presided over by our Auxiliary Bishop, Mons. “Ernesto Fernández”, he anticipated.
The purpose of the meeting, he stated, “is to pray.” This initiative seeks “that children can discover and continue discovering in Jesus the Eucharist their best friend.”
In their own communities, the children who attend the meeting participate in Eucharistic Adoration with different frequencies: some, every week; others, once a month or every 15 days. There are children of all ages, even teenagers, the priest said.
The meetings began at the initiative of the “Little Shepherds of Mary” community, coordinated by Father Rubén Campoli, who meets weekly at the feet of Jesus Sacramentado.
During the pandemic, the parish community made contact through social networks with other groups of worshiping children, and when restrictions allowed, they held their first National Meeting, which took place in 2022 in Laboulaye, Diocese of Río Cuarto, and carried the motto “ He hugged them and blessed them.”
The second edition was held in 2023 in Resistencia, Chaco, with the motto “Didn’t we feel our hearts burning?”
Juliet Villar
I am a journalist, with a degree in communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non-governmental organizations. Since 2016 I have been dedicated to Catholic journalism, first at the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as ACI Prensa correspondent for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.