Aleteia readers given sneak peek of 2025 New York Encounter

Is it really possible to find love and fulfillment in today’s world?

Where can we see signs of hope in the midst of global conflict and suffering?

How can we ensure our humanity thrives in a culture where technology threatens our extinction?

We ask ourselves these sorts of questions all the time, but seldom have a chance to express them aloud or discuss them with others. And that’s exactly why the New York Encounter exists — to be a place where life’s most important concerns can be shared in an atmosphere of acceptance and friendship.

February 14-16, 2025, thousands of Catholics and seekers of every kind will gather at the Manhattan Center in NYC to for three days of free public presentations, artistic performances, and exhibits. This annual event is also an opportunity to reawaken the soul and make new friends.

The New York Encounter had a simple beginning. Back in 2009 a small group of friends decided to create a public event that would explore the impact of Christian faith on everyday life. Fifteen years later, the Encounter has become an important cultural event for New York, but it also draws visitors from across the US and even from other countries. Importantly, the Encounter is not just an event for committed Christians but welcomes curious souls from every sort of background.

“We put together this event for everybody,” one of the organizers told Aleteia this past Friday. Around a hundred people had gathered at the community center of St. Jean Baptiste Church in Manhattan to preview the theme of the 2025 edition: “Here Begins a New Life.”

Courtesy of New York Encounter

The theme is drawn from Dante Alighieri’s La Vita Nuova, when the poet recalls first meeting the woman Beatrice, who for him embodied the ideal of beauty:

“In that part of the book of my memory, before which little can be read, there is a heading which says: ‘Here begins a new life.’”

For the organizers, only an experience of exceptional love can truly heal us and allow us to begin again, as they explain in a statement on the 2025 theme:

“The encounter with a great love gives us a glimpse of a mysterious presence — the ultimate Beauty and Love — whom we always expected but never met. The awareness of this presence, its memory, can heal our relationship with the past and give reasons to hope and to build.”

Courtesy of New York Encounter

While the final program of the 2025 New York Encounter has not yet been publicly announced, the organizers have given Aleteia readers a sneak peek at some of the events, including:

• Panel discussions with experts from institutions like MIT and the American Enterprise Institute will look at various problems and opportunities our world faces today. Among the topics to be discussed will be climate change, the immigration crisis, and the phenomenon of worldwide demographic decline as people postpone starting families.

• Professors Martin Nowak (Harvard University) and Robert Philips (California Institute of Technology) will discuss the attention and sense of wonder that is a key part of scientific research.

• Macao-born pianist Kuok-Wai Lio (currently artist in residence at Benedictine College) will perform as part of the opening evening, which will be dedicated to Fr. Luigi Giussani, founder of the Communion and Liberation movement, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his death. Saturday evening will highlight novelist Cormac McCarthy, with readings from his works of novelist accompanied by live, original music.

• Among the many exhibits at this year’s NYE, one will look at the theme of hope in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, while another will spotlight the popular TV series Succession. The series is about the magnate of a media empire and his children who, per exhibit curator Sophia Sorensen, are “trapped in an endless struggle to prove themselves worthy successors to a man with no interest in stepping aside.” Sorensen says the exhibit will look closely at the characters in this black comedy and “the consequences that denying the past has on the human person.”

• There will also be a large family-friendly area with activities prepared especially for children.

Many more events will be announced in the coming months. For more information about the New York Encounter, you can visit their website.

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