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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 XXII WORLD YOUTH DAY, 2007
“Just as I have loved
you, you also
should love one another” (Jn 13:34).
My dear young friends,
On
the occasion of the 22nd World Youth Day that will be
celebrated in the dioceses on Palm Sunday, I would like to
propose for your meditation the words of Jesus: “Just as I
have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn
13:34).
Is it possible to love?
Everybody feels the longing to love and to be loved. Yet, how
difficult it is to love, and how many mistakes and failures have
to be reckoned with in love! There are those who even come to
doubt that love is possible. But if emotional delusions or lack
of affection can cause us to think that love is utopian, an
impossible dream, should we then become resigned? No! Love is
possible, and the purpose of my message is to help reawaken in
each one of you - you who are the future and hope of humanity-,
trust in a love that is true, faithful and strong; a love that
generates peace and joy; a love that binds people together and
allows them to feel free in respect for one another. Let us now
go on a journey together in three stages, as we embark on a
“discovery” of love.
God, the source of love
The
first stage concerns the source of true love. There is only one
source, and that is God. Saint John makes this clear when he
declares that “God is love” (1 Jn 4: 8,16). He was not
simply saying that God loves us, but that the very being of God
is love. Here we find ourselves before the most dazzling
revelation of the source of love, the mystery of the Trinity: in
God, one and triune, there is an everlasting exchange of love
between the persons of the Father and the Son, and this love is
not an energy or a sentiment, but it is a person; it is the Holy
Spirit.
The Cross of Christ fully reveals the love of God
How is God-Love revealed to us? We have
now reached the second stage of our journey. Even though the
signs of divine love are already clearly present in creation,
the full revelation of the intimate mystery of God came to us
through the Incarnation when God himself became man. In Christ,
true God and true Man, we have come to know love in all its
magnitude. In fact, as I wrote in the Encyclical
Deus caritas est, “the real
novelty of the New Testament lies not so much in new ideas as in
the figure of Christ himself, who gives flesh and blood to those
conceptsCan unprecedented realism” (n. 12). The manifestation of
divine love is total and perfect in the Cross where, we are told
by Saint Paul, “God proves his love for us in that while we
still were sinners Christ died for us” (Rm 5:8).
Therefore, each one of us can truly say: “Christ loved me and
gave himself up for me” (cf Eph 5:2). Redeemed by his
blood, no human life is useless or of little value, because each
of us is loved personally by Him with a passionate and faithful
love, a love without limits. The Cross, - for the world a folly,
for many believers a scandal-, is in fact the “wisdom of God”
for those who allow themselves to be touched right to the
innermost depths of their being, “for God’s foolishness is
wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than
human strength” (1 Cor 1:25). Moreover, the Crucifix,
which after the Resurrection would carry forever the marks of
his passion, exposes the “distortions” and lies about God that
underlie violence, vengeance and exclusion. Christ is the Lamb
of God who takes upon himself the sins of the world and
eradicates hatred from the heart of humankind. This is the true
“revolution” that He brings about: love.
Loving our neighbour as Christ loves us
Now
we have arrived at the third stage of our reflection. Christ
cried out from the Cross: “I am thirsty” (Jn
19:28). This shows us his burning thirst to love and to be loved
by each one of us. It is only by coming to perceive the depth
and intensity of such a mystery that we can realise the need and
urgency to love him as He has loved us. This also entails the
commitment to even give our lives, if necessary, for our
brothers and sisters sustained by love for Him. God had already
said in the Old Testament: “You shall love your neighbour as
yourself” (Lev 19:18), but the innovation introduced
by Christ is the fact that to love as he loves us means loving
everyone without distinction, even our enemies, “to the end”
(cf Jn 13:1).
Witnesses to the love of Christ
I
would like to linger for a moment on three areas of daily life
where you, my dear young friends, are particularly called to
demonstrate the love of God. The first area is the Church, our
spiritual family, made up of all the disciples of Christ.
Mindful of his words: “By this everyone will know that you
are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn
13:35), you should stimulate, with your enthusiasm and charity,
the activities of the parishes, the communities, the ecclesial
movements and the youth groups to which you belong. Be attentive
in your concern for the welfare of others, faithful to the
commitments you have made. Do not hesitate to joyfully abstain
from some of your entertainments; cheerfully accept the
necessary sacrifices; testify to your faithful love for Jesus by
proclaiming his Gospel, especially among young people of your
age.
Preparing for the future
The
second area, where you are called to express your love and grow
in it, is your preparation for the future that awaits you. If
you are engaged to be married, God has a project of love for
your future as a couple and as a family. Therefore, it is
essential that you discover it with the help of the Church, free
from the common prejudice that says that Christianity with its
commandments and prohibitions places obstacles to the joy of
love and impedes you from fully enjoying the happiness that a
man and woman seek in their reciprocal love. The love of a man
and woman is at the origin of the human family and the couple
formed by a man and a woman has its foundation in God’s original
plan (cf Gen 2:18-25). Learning to love each other as a
couple is a wonderful journey, yet it requires a demanding
“apprenticeship”. The period of engagement, very necessary in
order to form a couple, is a time of expectation and preparation
that needs to be lived in purity of gesture and words. It allows
you to mature in love, in concern and in attention for each
other; it helps you to practise self-control and to develop your
respect for each other. These are the characteristics of true
love that does not place emphasis on seeking its own
satisfaction or its own welfare. In your prayer together, ask
the Lord to watch over and increase your love and to purify it
of all selfishness. Do not hesitate to respond generously to the
Lord’s call, for Christian matrimony is truly and wholly a
vocation in the Church. Likewise, dear young men and women, be
ready to say “yes” if God should call you to follow the path of
ministerial priesthood or the consecrated life. Your example
will be one of encouragement for many of your peers who are
seeking true happiness.
Growing in love each day
The
third area of commitment that comes with love is that of daily
life with its multiple relationships. I am particularly
referring to family, studies, work and free time. Dear young
friends, cultivate your talents, not only to obtain a social
position, but also to help others to “grow”. Develop your
capacities, not only in order to become more “competitive” and
“productive”, but to be “witnesses of charity”. In addition to
your professional training, also make an effort to acquire
religious knowledge that will help you to carry out your mission
in a responsible way. In particular, I invite you to carefully
study the social doctrine of the Church so that its principles
may inspire and guide your action in the world. May the Holy
Spirit make you creative in charity, persevering in your
commitments, and brave in your initiatives, so that you will be
able to offer your contribution to the building up of the
“civilisation of love”. The horizon of love is truly boundless:
it is the whole world!
“Dare to love” by following the example of the saints
My dear
young friends, I want to invite you to “dare to love”. Do not desire
anything less for your life than a love that is strong and beautiful
and that is capable of making the whole of your existence a joyful
undertaking of giving yourselves as a gift to God and your brothers
and sisters, in imitation of the One who vanquished hatred and death
forever through love (cf Rev 5:13). Love is the only force
capable of changing the heart of the human person and of all
humanity, by making fruitful the relations between men and women,
between rich and poor, between cultures and civilisations. This is
shown to us in the lives of the saints. They are true friends of God
who channel and reflect this very first love. Try to know them
better, entrust yourselves to their intercession, and strive to live
as they did. I shall just mention Mother Teresa. In order to respond
instantly to the cry of Jesus, “I thirst”, a cry that had touched
her deeply, she began to take in the people who were dying on the
streets of Calcutta in India. From that time onward, the only desire
of her life was to quench the thirst of love felt by Jesus, not with
words, but with concrete action by recognising his disfigured
countenance thirsting for love in the faces of the poorest of the
poor. Blessed Teresa put the teachings of the Lord into practice:
“Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of
my family, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). The message of
this humble witness of divine love has spread around the whole
world.
The secret of love
Each one
of us, my dear friends, has been given the possibility of reaching
this same level of love, but only by having recourse to the
indispensable support of divine Grace. Only the Lord’s help will
allow us to keep away from resignation when faced with the enormity
of the task to be undertaken. It instills in us the courage to
accomplish that which is humanly inconceivable. Above all, the
Eucharist is the great school of love. When we participate regularly
and with devotion in Holy Mass, when we spend a sustained time of
adoration in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, it is easier to
understand the length, breadth, height and depth of his love that
goes beyond all knowledge (cf Eph 3:17-18). By sharing the
Eucharistic Bread with our brothers and sisters of the Church
community, we feel compelled, like Our Lady with Elizabeth, to
render “in haste” the love of Christ into generous service towards
our brothers and sisters.
Towards the encounter in Sydney
On this
subject, the recommendation of the apostle John is illuminating:
“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth
and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth”
(1 Jn 3: 18-19). Dear young people, it is in this spirit that
I invite you to experience the next World Youth Day together with
your bishops in your respective dioceses. This will be an important
stage on the way to the meeting in Sydney where the theme will be: “You
will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you
will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). May Mary, the Mother of
Christ and of the Church, help you to let that cry ring out
everywhere, the cry that has changed the world: “God is love!” I am
together with you all in prayer and extend to you my heartfelt
blessing.
From
the Vatican, 27 January 2007
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
