Dear Young Friends,
At the closing of this celebration I turn to you directly and I greet you warmly. You hit come here in great drawing from all over the country and from neighbouring countries; you camped here yesterday evening and you spent the night in tents, distribution an experience of establishment and companionship. Thank you for your presence here, which gives me a significance of the enthusiasm and generosity so characteristic of youth. Being with you makes the Catholic see young! I modify a particular articulate of thanks to your allegoric for his words and for the wonderful gift.
Dear friends, it is not hard to see that in every young person there is an aspiration towards happiness, sometimes tinged with anxiety: an aspiration that is often exploited, however, by present-day consumerist society in false and alienating ways. Instead, that longing for happiness must be taken seriously, it demands a true and comprehensive response. At your age, the first major choices are made, choices that can set your lives on a particular course, for better or worse. Unfortunately, many of your contemporaries allow themselves to be led astray by illusory visions of spurious happiness, and then they find themselves sad and alone. Yet there are also many young men and women who seek to transform doctrine into action, as your representative said, so as to give the fullness of meaning to their lives. I invite you all to consider the experience of Saint Augustine, who said that the heart of every person is restless until it finds what it truly seeks. And he discovered that Jesus Christ alone is the answer that can satisfy his and every person's desire for a life of happiness, filled with meaning and value (cf. Confessions, I.1.1).
As he did with Augustine, so the nobleman comes to meet each digit of you. He knocks at the door of your freedom and asks to be welcomed as a friend. He wants to attain you happy, to fill you with humanity and dignity. The faith faith is this: encounter with Christ, the living Person who gives life a newborn horizon and thereby a expressed direction. And when the heart of a teen mortal opens up to his divine plans, it is not arduous to recognize and follow his voice. The nobleman calls each of us by name, and entrusts to us a specific assignment in the Church and in society. Dear teen people, be alive that by Baptism you hit become children of God and members of his Body, the Church. Jesus constantly renews his invitation to you to be his disciples and his witnesses. Many of you he calls to marriage, and the preparation for this Sacrament constitutes a real vocational journey. Consider earnestly the divine call to raise a faith family, and permit your youth be the instance in which to physique your future with a sense of responsibility. Society needs faith families, saintly families!
And if the Lord is calling you to follow him in the ministerial priesthood or in the consecrated life, do not hesitate to respond to his invitation. In particular, in this Year of Priests, I appeal to you, young men: be attentive and open to Jesus's call to offer your lives in the service of God and his people. The Church in every country, including this one, needs many holy priests and also persons fully consecrated to the service of Christ, Hope of the world.
Hope! This word, to which I often return, sits particularly substantially with youth. You, my love teen people, are the hope of the Church! She expects you to become messengers of hope, as happened last assemblage in Australia, during World Youth Day, that great dissent of youthful faith that I was able to experience personally, and in which some of you took part. Many more of you module be able to come to Madrid in August 2011. I invite you here and today to participate in this great assembling of teen people with Christ in the Church.
Dear friends, thank you again for being here and thank you for your gift: the aggregation of photographs recounting the lives of teen people in your dioceses. Thank you also for the clew of your solidarity towards the teen people of Africa, which you have presented to me. The Pope asks you to live your faith with joy and enthusiasm; to grow in unity among yourselves and with Christ; to pray and to be hardworking in frequenting the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Confession; to verify seriously your faith formation, remaining ever obedient to the teachings of your Pastors. May Saint Wenceslaus guide you along this path through his example and his intercession, and may you ever savor the protection of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus and our Mother. I bless every of you with affection!
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