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Pope Benedict XVI - World Youth Day 2007 |
MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER BENEDICT XVI
TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF THE WORLD
ON THE OCCASION OF THE XXI WORLD YOUTH DAY, 2006
April 9, 2006
"Your word is a lamp to
my feet
and a light to my path" (Ps 119 [118]:105)
My
dear young friends!
It is
with great joy that I greet you as you prepare for the 21st
World Youth Day, and I relive the memory of those enriching
experiences we had in August last year in Germany. World Youth Day
this year will be celebrated in the local Churches, and it will be a
good opportunity to rekindle the flame of enthusiasm that was
awakened in Cologne and which many of you have brought to your
families, parishes, associations and movements. At the same time, it
will be a wonderful chance to invite many of your friends to join
the young generation’s spiritual pilgrimage towards Christ.
The theme that I suggest to you is a verse from Psalm 119 [118]: "Your
word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (v. 105). Our
dearly loved John Paul II commented on that verse of the psalm as
follows: "The one who prays pours out his thanks for the Law of God
that he adopts as a lamp for his steps in the often dark path of
Life" (General Audience, Wednesday 14 November 2001). God reveals
himself in history. He speaks to humankind, and the word he speaks
has creative power. The Hebrew concept "dabar", usually
translated as "word", really conveys both the meaning of word
and act. God says what he does and does what he says. The Old
Testament announces to the Children of Israel the coming of the
Messiah and the establishment of a "new" covenant; in the Word made
flesh He fulfils his promise. This is clearly specified in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father's one, perfect and
unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no
other word than this one" (n. 65). The Holy Spirit who has led the
chosen people by inspiring the authors of the Sacred Scriptures,
opens the hearts of believers to understand their meaning. This same
Spirit is actively present in the Eucharistic celebration when the
priest, "in persona Christi", says the words of consecration,
changing the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, for
the spiritual nourishment of the faithful. In order to progress on
our earthly pilgrimage towards the heavenly Kingdom, we all need to
be nourished by the word and the bread of eternal Life, and these
are inseparable from one another!
The Apostles received the word of salvation and passed it on to
their successors as a precious gem kept safely in the jewel box of
the Church: without the Church, this pearl runs the risk of being
lost or destroyed. My dear young friends, love the word of God and
love the Church, and this will give you access to a treasure of very
great value and will teach you how to appreciate its richness. Love
and follow the Church, for it has received from its Founder the
mission of showing people the way to true happiness. It is not easy
to recognise and find authentic happiness in this world in which we
live, where people are often held captive by the current ways of
thinking. They may think they are "free", but they are being led
astray and become lost amid the errors or illusions of aberrant
ideologies. "Freedom itself needs to be set free" (cf the encyclical
Veritatis Splendor, 86), and the
darkness in which humankind is groping needs to be illuminated.
Jesus taught us how this can be done: "If you continue in my word,
you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the
truth will make you free" (Jn 8:31-32). The incarnate Word,
Word of Truth, makes us free and directs our freedom towards the
good. My dear young friends, meditate often on the word of God, and
allow the Holy Spirit to be your teacher. You will then discover
that God’s way of thinking is not the same as that of humankind’s.
You will find yourselves led to contemplate the real God and to read
the events of history through his eyes. You will savour in fullness
the joy that is born of truth. On life’s journey, which is neither
easy nor free of deceptions, you will meet difficulties and
suffering and at times you will be tempted to exclaim with the
psalmist: "I am severely afflicted" (Ps 119 [118]. v. 107).
Do not forget to add as the psalmist did: "give me life, O Lord,
according to your word... I hold my life in my hand continually, but
I do not forget your law" (ibid. vv. 107; 109). The loving
presence of God, through his word, is the lamp that dispels the
darkness of fear and lights up the path even when times are most
difficult.
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote: "Indeed, the word of
God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to
judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (4:12). It is
necessary to take seriously the injunction to consider the word of
God to be an indispensable "weapon" in the spiritual struggle. This
will be effective and show results if we learn to listen to
it and then to obey it. The
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
explains: "To obey (from the Latin
ob-audire, to ‘hear or listen to’) in faith is to submit freely
to the word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by
God, who is Truth itself" (n. 144). While Abraham exemplifies this
way of listening which is obedience, Solomon in his turn shows
himself to be a passionate explorer of the wisdom contained in the
Word. When God said to him: "Ask what I should give you", the wise
king replied: "Give your servant therefore an understanding heart"
(1 Kings 3:5,9). The secret of acquiring "an understanding
heart" is to train your heart to listen. This is obtained
by persistently meditating on the word of God and by remaining
firmly rooted in it through the commitment to persevere in getting
to know it better.
My
dear young friends, I urge you to become familiar with the Bible,
and to have it at hand so that it can be your compass pointing out
the road to follow. By reading it, you will learn to know Christ.
Note what Saint Jerome said in this regard: "Ignorance of the
Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" (PL 24,17; cf
Dei Verbum, 25). A time-honoured way
to study and savour the word of God is lectio divina which
constitutes a real and veritable spiritual journey marked out
in stages. After the lectio, which consists of reading and
rereading a passage from Sacred Scripture and taking in the main
elements, we proceed to meditatio. This is a moment of
interior reflection in which the soul turns to God and tries to
understand what his word is saying to us today. Then comes oratio
in which we linger to talk with God directly. Finally we come to
contemplatio. This helps us to keep our hearts attentive to the
presence of Christ whose word is "a lamp shining in a dark place,
until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" (2
Pet 1:19). Reading, study and meditation of the Word should then
flow into a life of consistent fidelity to Christ and his teachings.
Saint
James tells us: "Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who
deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not
doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for
they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what
they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of
liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who
act - they will be blessed in their doing" (1:22-25). Those who
listen to the word of God and refer to it always, are constructing
their existence on solid foundations. "Everyone then who hears these
words of mine and acts on them", Jesus said, "will be like a wise
man who built his house on rock" (Mt 7:24). It will not collapse
when bad weather comes.
To build
your life on Christ, to accept the word with joy and put its
teachings into practice: this, young people of the third millennium,
should be your programme! There is an urgent need for the emergence
of a new generation of apostles anchored firmly in the word of
Christ, capable of responding to the challenges of our times and
prepared to spread the Gospel far and wide. It is this that the Lord
asks of you, it is to this that the Church invites you, and it is
this that the world - even though it may not be aware of it -
expects of you! If Jesus calls you, do not be afraid to respond to
him with generosity, especially when he asks you to follow him in
the consecrated life or in the priesthood. Do not be afraid; trust
in him and you will not be disappointed.
Dear
friends, at the 21st World Youth Day that we will
celebrate on 9 April next, Palm Sunday, we will set out, in our
hearts, on a pilgrimage towards the world encounter with young
people that will take place in Sydney in July 2008. We will prepare
for that great appointment reflecting together on the theme The
Holy Spirit and the mission in successive stages. This year our
attention will focus on the Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth, who
reveals Christ to us, the Word made flesh, opening the heart of each
one to the Word of salvation that leads to the fullness of Truth.
Next year, 2007, we will meditate on a verse from the Gospel of
John: "Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another"
(13:34). We will discover more about the Holy Spirit, Spirit of
Love, who infuses divine charity within us and makes us aware of
the material and spiritual needs of our brothers and sisters. We
will finally reach the world meeting of 2008 and its theme will be:
"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
and you will be my witnesses" (Acts 1:8).
From
this moment onwards, my dear young friends, in a climate of constant
listening to the word of God, call on the Holy Spirit, Spirit of
fortitude and witness, that you may be able to proclaim the
Gospel without fear even to the ends of the earth. Our Lady was
present in the cenacle with the Apostles as they waited for
Pentecost. May she be your mother and guide. May she teach you to
receive the word of God, to treasure it and to ponder on it in your
heart (cf Lk 2:19) as she did throughout her life. May she
encourage you to declare your "yes" to the Lord as you live "the
obedience of faith". May she help you to remain strong in the faith,
constant in hope, persevering in charity, always attentive to the
word of God. I am together with you in prayer, and I bless each one
of you with all my heart.
From the Vatican,
22 February 2006, Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter Apostle.
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI
Look at the One they
Pierced!
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
