What an amazing spectacle of young and stirring faith we are experiencing
this evening! And this evening, thanks to you, Loreto has become the spiritual
capital of youth; the centre towards which multitudes of the young people who
populate the five Continents converge in spirit.
At this moment, we feel as though we were surrounded by the expectations
and hopes of millions of young people across the world:
at this very minute there
are some who are watching, others who are asleep, yet others who are studying
or working; some are hoping and some despairing, some believe and others are
not able to believe, some love life and others, instead, are throwing it away. I
would like my words to reach them all: the Pope is close to you, he shares your
joys and your pain, and he especially shares in the most intimate hopes that are
in your soul. For each one of you he asks the Lord for
the gift of a full and happy
life,
a life filled with meaning, a true life.
Today, unfortunately, all too often a full and happy existence is seen by
many young people as a difficult dream - we heard so many testimonies -
sometimes almost impossible to accomplish. So many of your peers are looking
to the future with apprehension and ask many questions. Worried, they ask: How
is it possible to be integrated in a society marked by a multitude of grave
injustices and suffering? How should I react to the selfishness and violence that
sometimes seem to prevail? How can I give life full meaning?
With love and conviction, I repeat to you young people present here, and
through you to your peers throughout the world: Do not be afraid, Christ can fill
your heart’s deepest aspirations! Are there dreams that cannot come true when it
is God’s Spirit who inspires and nourishes them in your heart? Can anything
block our enthusiasm when we are united with Christ? Nothing and no one, the
Apostle Paul would say, will ever separate us from God’s love, in Christ Jesus
Our Lord (cf.
Rom 8: 35-39).
Let me tell you again this evening: if you stay united with Christ, each one
of you will be able to do great things. This is why, dear friends, you must not be
afraid to dream with your eyes open of important projects of good and you must
not let yourselves be discouraged by difficulties. Christ has confidence in you
and wants you to be able to realize all your most noble and lofty dreams of
genuine happiness. Nothing is impossible for those who trust in God and entrust
themselves to him.
Look at the young Mary; the Angel proposed something truly
inconceivable to her: participation, in the most involving way possible, in the
greatest of God’s plans, the salvation of humanity. Facing this proposal, Mary, as
we heard in the Gospel, was distressed for she realized the smallness of her
being before the omnipotence of God; and she asked herself: “How is it
possible? Why should it be me?”. Yet, ready to do the divine will, she promptly
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said her “yes”. Which changed her life and the history of all humanity. It is also
thanks to her “yes” that we are meeting here this evening.
I ask myself and I ask you: can God’s requests to us, however demanding
they may seem, ever compare with what God asked the young Mary? Dear
young men and women, since Mary truly knows what it means to respond
generously to the Lord’s requests, let us learn from her to say our own “yes”.
Mary, dear young people, knows your noblest and deepest aspirations. Above
all, she well knows your great desire for love, with your need to love and to be
loved. By looking at her, by following her docilely, you will discover the beauty
of love; not a “disposable” love that is transient and deceptive, imprisoned in a
selfish
and materialistic mindset,
but true, deep love.
In the very depths of their hearts, every young man, every young woman
who are looking out on life, cherish the dream of a love that will give full
meaning to their futures. For many, this is fulfilled in the choice of marriage and
in the formation of a family in which the love between a man and a woman is
lived as a definitive gift, sealed by the “yes” spoken before God on their
wedding day, a “yes” for their whole life.
I know well that today this dream is always less easy to realize. How many
failures of love surround us! How many couples bow their heads, give up and
separate! How many families fall to pieces! How many young people, even
among you, have witnessed the separation and divorce of their parents! I would
like to say to those in such sensitive and complex situations: the Mother of God,
the Community of believers and the Pope are beside you and are praying that the
crisis that marks today’s families may not become an irreversible failure. May
Christian families, with the support of divine Grace, stay faithful to that solemn
commitment of love joyfully assumed before the priest and the Christian
community on the solemn day of their marriage.
In the face of so many failures these questions are often asked: Am I any
better than my friends and my parents who have tried and failed? Why should I
myself succeed where so many have given up? This human fear can be daunting
to even the more courageous spirits but in this night that awaits us, in front of
her Holy House, Mary will repeat to each one of you, dear young friends, the
words that she herself heard the Angel say to her: Do not be afraid, do not fear!
The Holy Spirit is with you and will never leave you. Nothing is impossible to
those who trust in God. This applies for those who are destined to married life
and still more for those to whom God proposes a life of total detachment from
earthly goods, to be dedicated full time to his Kingdom. Some of you have set
out towards the priesthood, towards the consecrated life; some of you aspire to
be
missionaries, knowing how many and what risks this entails.
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