MAGIS and the World Youth Days

MAGIS began in 1997 as an initiative of the Jesuits to prepare young people for the World Youth Day celebrations. 
Young people got a chance to ‘taste’ more of Ignatian spirituality (after Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order). This spirituality is a powerful way to live your life and your faith in a deeper way, to make better choices, and to have a greater sense of social justice and ecology.
The program took its final shape in 2005 (WYD in Cologne), and MAGIS was born. 

How do you get the MAGIS-experience? 

• Every event starts off with a joyful gathering, with cultural activities, moments of prayer and formation, sharing and encounter. 
  
• Then you go to different places for a week of activities, the ‘experiments’ – social and ecological work, artistic activities like dancing, movie-making, plastic arts, pilgrimages...
  
• After the experiment-week, we meet again and share in a festive way our experiences. The ‘Festival of Nations’ is a great occasion for each country to present itself.
  
• At the center of an ordinary MAGIS-day is the MAGIS-circle: a moment where we are simply together, and share from our hearts.
  

In the course of the years, MAGIS has become a broader movement, more locally inserted. In the summer of 2014 three local MAGIS events took place: 

• one in Hungary organized by the Jesuits in Central Europe, 
• one in Ireland, organized by the Jesuits of Flanders, Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands 
• and a third in Zimbabwe and Zambia by the Jesuits in Africa.

In 2017 Central Europe will again organize a MAGIS-event, with a focus on Prague. 
So be there, #beMAGIS! 

	Participants in MAGIS	Experiments
​Cologne 2005	2000	25
Sydney 2008	1200	46
Madrid 2011	2500	99
Rio 2013	2000	89
Krakow 2016	2200	90