Excitement and anticipation are growing across the Archdiocese of Melbourne as young people in parishes, schools, migrant communities and movements have begun the journey to the Australian Catholic Youth Festival in November.
After 12 years, the festival returns to Melbourne. Between 30 November and 2 December 2025, thousands of young people from around Australia will converge on Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre for three days of prayer, Mass, workshops, talks, live concerts, games, action on justice issues, an interactive expo and opportunities to engage with leaders in the Catholic Church, including bishops.
In the outer western suburb of Melton South, St Anthony’s Parish are preparing to send a large contingent of young people to the festival. Rea, a youth leader at St Anthony’s, says they currently, have 16 people planning to attend.
She hopes that these young people will develop a ‘sense of zeal for our faith, reminding us why spending time with God is so important. Hopefully this could inspire them to become more devoted as young Catholics.’
Rea expects it will also be beneficial for her own faith journey as a young adult. ‘I’m hoping it’ll inspire me and teach me more ways of living my prayer life more authentically.’
We really want to invest in our young people so that we can have good leaders … and they can lead others closer to Christ.
The growing parish, under the care of the Rogationist community of priests, has already run fundraising events and weekly formation sessions for its youth group.
St Francis of Assisi Parish, in the northern suburb of Mill Park, sees sending a group to the festival as a great way to develop the next generation of disciples willing to share their faith with others.
‘We’ve actually decided to sponsor two of our older teens to go because we really want to support them to become future leaders.’
One of the teenagers, Ishan, says he is seeking to ‘learn more about my faith and hopefully grow more’. Another teenager, Liz, says she is ‘most excited to meet a lot of people around my age that share the same faith. I’m hoping to take on a leadership role at the youth group I go to … and bring more youth to the faith.’
Ishan, Carmel and Liz from St Francis of Assisi, Mill Park.
