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Pope John
Paul II's speech at the World Youth Gathering in Toronto, Ontario |
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Dear young friends:
You have come to
Toronto from every continent to celebrate World Youth Day. My joyful
and heartfelt greetings go to you! I have been eagerly looking
forward to this meeting, especially when day after day, from all
parts of the world, I received in the Vatican good news about all the
initiatives that have marked your journey here. And often, even
without having met you, I commended you one by one in my prayers to
the Lord. He has always known you, and He loves each one of you personally.
With fraternal
affection I greet the cardinals and bishops who are here with you, in
particular Bishop Jacques Berthelet, president of the Conference of
Catholic Bishops of Canada, Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic, archbishop of
this city, and Cardinal James Francis Stafford, president of the
Pontifical Council for the Laity. To all of you I say: may your
contacts with your pastors help you to discover and appreciate more
and more the beauty of the Church, experienced as missionary communion.
Listening to the
long list of countries from which you come, we have practically made
a trip round the world. Behind each of you I have glimpsed the faces
of all your fellow young people whom I have met in the course of my
apostolic travels, and whom in a way you represent here. I have
imagined you on a journey, walking in the shadow of the jubilee
cross, on this great youth pilgrimage which, moving from continent to
continent, is eager to hold the whole world in a close embrace of
faith and hope.
Today this
pilgrimage makes a stop here, on the shores of Lake Ontario. We are
reminded of another lake, the Lake of Tiberias, on the shores of
which the Lord Jesus made a fascinating proposal to the first
disciples, some of whom were probably young like you.
The Pope, who
loves you dearly, has come from afar to listen again with you to
Jesus's words. As was the case for the disciples on that day long
ago, these words can set the hearts of young people aflame and
motivate their whole lives. I invite you then to make the various
activities of this World Youth Day which is just beginning a special
time when each of you listens attentively to the Lord, with a willing
and generous heart, in order to become the "salt of the earth
and light of the world."
The Pope resumes
speaking after hymns and blessings
Dear young people:
What we have just
heard is the Magna Carta of Christianity: the beatitudes. We have
seen once more, with the eyes of our heart, what happened at that
time. A crowd of people is gathered around Jesus on the mountain: men
and women, young people and elderly folk, the healthy and the infirm,
who have come from Galilee, but also from Jerusalem, from Judea, from
the cities of the Decapolis, from Tyre and Sidon. All of them
anxiously awaiting a word, a gesture that will give them comfort and hope.
We too are
gathered here, this evening, to listen attentively to the Lord. He
looks at you with affection: you come from the different regions of
Canada, of the United States, of Central and South America, of
Europe, of Africa, of Asia, of Oceania. I have heard your festive
voices, your cries, your songs, and I have felt the deep longing that
beats within your hearts: you want to be happy!
Dear young people:
many and enticing are the voices that call out to you from all sides.
Many of these voices speak to you of a joy that can be had with
money, with success, with power. Mostly they propose a joy that comes
with the superficial and fleeting pleasure of the senses.
Dear friends, the
aged Pope, full of years but still young at heart, answers your
youthful desire for happiness with words that are not his own. They
are words that rang out 2,000 years ago. Words that we have heard
again tonight: "Blessed are they ..." The key word in
Jesus's teaching is a proclamation of joy: "Blessed are they ..."
People are made
for happiness. Rightly, then, you thirst for happiness. Christ has
the answer to this desire of yours. But he asks you to trust him.
True joy is a victory, something which cannot be obtained without a
long and difficult struggle. Christ holds the secret of this victory.
You know what came
before. It is told in the Book of Genesis: God created man and woman
in a paradise, Eden, because he wanted them to be happy.
Unfortunately, sin spoiled his initial plans. But God did not resign
himself to this defeat. He sent his Son into the world in order to
give back to us an even more beautiful idea of heaven. God became man
— the fathers of the Church tell us — so that men and women
could become God. This is the decisive turning point, brought about
in human history by the incarnation.
What struggle are
we talking about? Christ himself gives us the answer. Though he was
in the form of God, Saint Paul has written, he "did not count
equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself,
taking the form of a servant. ... He humbled himself and became
obedient unto death."
It was a struggle
unto death. Christ fought this battle not for himself but for us.
From death, life has sprung forth. The tomb at Calvary has become the
cradle of the new humanity on its journey to true happiness.
The Sermon on the
Mount marks out the man of this journey. The eight beatitudes are the
road signs that show the way. It is an uphill path, but he has walked
it before us. He said one day: "He who follows me will not walk
in darkness."
And at another
time he added: "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy
may be in you, and that your joy may be full."
It is by walking
with Christ that we can achieve joy, true joy! Precisely for this
reason he again repeats the proclamation of joy to you today:
"Blessed are they ..."
Now that we are
about to welcome His glorious cross, the cross that has accompanied
young people on the roadways of the world, let this consoling and
demanding word echo in the silence of your hearts: "Blessed are
they ..."
Gathered around
the Lord's cross, we look to Him: Jesus did not limit himself to
proclaiming the beatitudes, he lived them! Looking at his life anew, re-reading
the Gospel, we marvel: the poorest of the poor, the most gentle
among the meek, the person with the purest and most merciful heart is
none other than Jesus. The beatitudes are nothing more than the
description of a face, his face!
At the same time,
the beatitudes describe what a Christian should be: they are the
portrait of Jesus' disciple, the picture of those who have accepted
the Kingdom of God and want their life to be in tune with the demands
of the Gospel. To these Jesus speaks, calling them "blessed."
The joy promised
by the beatitudes is the very joy of Jesus himself: a joy sought and
found in obedience to the Father and in the gift of self to others.
Young people of
Canada, of America and of every part of the world: by looking at
Jesus you will learn what it means to be poor in spirit, meek and
merciful; what it means to seek justice, to be pure in heart, to be peacemakers.
With your gaze set
firmly on him, you will discover the path of forgiveness and
reconciliation in a world often laid waste by violence and terror.
Last year we saw with dramatic clarity the tragic face of human
malice. We saw what happens when hatred, sin and death take command.
But today Jesus'
voice resounds in the midst of our gathering. His is a voice of hope,
of forgiveness: a voice of justice and of peace. Let us listen to
this voice!
Dear friends, the
Church today looks to you with confidence and expects you to be the
people of the beatitudes.
Blessed are you
if, like Jesus, you are poor in spirit, good and merciful; if you
really seek what is just and right; if you are pure of heart,
peacemakers, lovers of the poor and their servants. Blessed are you!
Only Jesus is the
true master, only Jesus speaks the unchanging message that responds
to the deepest longings of the human heart, because he alone knows
"what is in each person." Today he calls you to be the salt
and light of the world, to choose goodness, to live in justice to
become instruments of love and peace. His call has always demanded a
choice between good and evil, between light and darkness, between
life and death. He makes the same invitation today to you who are
gathered here on the shores of Lake Ontario.
What call will
those on early morning watch choose to follow? To believe in Jesus is
to accept what he says, even when it runs contrary to what others are
saying. It means rejecting the lure of sin, however attractive it may
be, in order to set out on the difficult path of the Gospel virtues.
Young people
listening to me, answer the Lord with strong and generous hearts! He
is counting on you. Never forget: Christ needs you to carry out his
plan of salvation!
Christ needs your
youth and your generous enthusiasm to make his proclamation of joy
resound in the new millennium. Answer his call by placing your lives
at his service in your brothers and sisters! Trust Christ, because he
trusts you.
Lord Jesus Christ,
proclaim once more your beatitudes in the presence of these young
people, gathered in Toronto for the World Youth Day. Look upon them
with love and listen to their young hearts, ready to put their future
on the line for you. You have called them to be the "salt of the
earth and light of the world." Continue to teach them the truth
and beauty of the vision that you proclaimed on the mountain. Make
them men and women of the beatitudes! Let the light of your wisdom
shine upon them, so that in word and deed they may spread in the
world the light and salt of the Gospel. Make their whole life a
bright reflection of you, who are the true light that came into this
world so that whoever believes in you will not die, but will have
eternal life |
