
“A true prophetic mission” can be carried out on a motorcycle, Lisbon’s patriarch told 180,000 motorcyclists who gathered at the Sanctuary of Fátima 22 September for their ninth pilgrimage.
Bishop Rui Manuel Sousa Valério challenged motorcyclists to “infect the world and society” with a “spiritual and humanist dimension for the development of daily life tasks,” giving them “a true prophetic mission.”
During the ninth Pilgrimage of the Blessing of Helmets, the patriarch asked a record number of participants to be “walkers who go to meet the Lord, radiating, along the paths, the luminous light of hope.”
By ceasing to be “focused solely on the physical dimensions of speeds reached, kilometres covered, stages covered, and engine capacities,” the patriarch believes that motorcyclists “will begin to understand and feel that what really moves and transports us is not the powerful engines with large displacement, but the Lord of Life.”
Bishop Sousa Valério stressed “It is he who moves us and it is to him that, deep within, human beings always yearn to go.” Organised under the theme “We are shaped and guided by what we love!” by the Helmet Blessing Association, the pilgrimage was associated with with two charitable donation drives to purchase an adapted wheelchair for a 22-year-old motorcyclist who was left a quadriplegic due to a motorcycle accident and to help the fire brigades fighting devastating fires in Portugal.