| The Response of the Holy Father to two questions
posed by young people
During the Prayer Vigil [1 September 2007]two young people asked the Pope questions.
After Piero Tisti gave his witness he asked the Holy Father: "Many
of us young people in the suburbs do not have a centre, a place or people
with whom we can identify. Often we are without a history, a perspective
or even a future. It seems that what we really wait for never happens.
From this come the experience of solitude and at times, an improper
dependence on others. Your Holiness, is there someone or something by
means of which we can become important? How is it possible to hope when
reality negates every dream of happiness, every project of life?".
The following is a translation of the Pope's answer, given in
Italian.
Thank you for this question and for your very realistic presentation of
the situation. It is not always easy to respond concerning the peripheries
of this world with great problems and we do not want to live an easy
optimism; but on the other hand, we must have the courage to go forwards.
I will therefore anticipate the essence of my answer: Yes, there is
hope today too; each one of you is important because each is known and
desired by God and God has his plan for each one. It is our task to
discover and respond to it, so that despite these precarious and
marginalized situations, we will be able to put into practice God's plan
for us.
However, to go into detail, you have realistically presented to us the
situation of a society: in the outskirts it seems hard to move ahead, to
change the world for the better. Everything seems concentrated in the
great centres of economic and political power, the great bureaucracies
dominate, and those in the outskirts truly seem excluded from this life.
Then, one aspect of this situation of marginalization that affects so
many people is that the important cells of social life that can also build
centres on the fringes are fragmented: the family, which should be the
place where generations meet — from great grandfather to grandchild —,
should not only be a place where generations meet but also where they
learn to live, learn the essential virtues, and this is in danger.
Thus, all the more should we do our utmost to ensure that the family
survives, that today too, it is the vital cell, the centre in the
periphery.
Therefore, the parish, the living cell of the Church, must also really
be a place of inspiration, life and solidarity which helps people build
together centres in the periphery. And I must say here, there is often
talk about the Church in the suburbs and in the centre, which would be
Rome, but in fact in the Church there are no suburbs because where Christ
is, the whole centre is there.
Wherever the Eucharist is celebrated, wherever the Tabernacle stands,
there is Christ; hence, there is the centre and we must do all we can to
ensure that these living centres are effective, present and truly a force
that counters this marginalization.
The living Church, the Church of the little communities, the parish
Church, the movements, must form as many centres in the outskirts and thus
help to overcome the difficulties that the leading politics obviously
cannot manage to resolve, and at the same time, we must also think that
despite the great focuses of power, contemporary society itself is in need
of solidarity, of a sense of lawfulness, of the initiative and creativity
of all.
I know that this is easier said than done, but I see here people who
are working to increase the number of centres in the peripheries, to
increase hope, and thus it seems to me that we should take up the
initiative. The Church must be present precisely in the suburbs; Christ
must be present, the centre of the world must be present.
We have seen and we see today in the Gospel that for God there are no
peripheries. In the vast context of the Roman Empire, the Holy Land was
situated on the fringe; Nazareth was on the margins, an unknown town. Yet
that very situation was, de facto, to become the centre that changed the
world!
And thus, we must form centres of faith, hope, love and solidarity,
centres of a sense of justice and lawfulness and of cooperation. Only in
this way will modern society be able to survive. It needs this courage, it
needs to create centres even if, obviously, hope does not seem to exist.
We must counter this desperation, we must collaborate with great
solidarity in doing our best to increase hope, so that men and women may
collaborate and live.
The world — we see it — must be changed, but it is precisely the
mission of young people to change it! We cannot change it with our own
strength alone but in communion of faith and in journeying on together. In
communion with Mary, with all the Saints, in communion with Christ, we can
do something essential, and I encourage you and invite you to trust in
Christ, to trust in God.
Being in the great company of the Saints and moving forward with them
can change the world, creating centres in the outskirts, so that the
company of Saints may truly become visible and thus the hope of all may
become realistic, and every one may say: "I am important in the totality
of history. The Lord will help us". Thank you.
A second question was asked by Sara Simonetta after her witness: "I
believe in the God who has touched my heart, but I have many insecurities,
questions and fears that I carry within. It is not easy to speak about God
with my friends; many of them see the Church as a reality that judges
youth, that opposes their desire for happiness and love. Faced with this
refusal, I feel all of my solitude as human and I want to feel near God.
Your Holiness, in this silence, where is God?".
The following is a translation of the Pope's answer, given in
Italian.
Yes, even though we are believers, we all know God's silence. In the
Psalm we have just recited, there is this almost despairing cry: "Make
haste to answer me, O Lord... Do not hide your face!", and a little while
ago a book of the spiritual experiences of Mother Teresa was published and
what we already all knew was a little more clearly shown: with all her
charity and the power of her faith, Mother Teresa suffered from God's
silence.
On the one hand, we must also bear God's silence in order to understand
our brothers who do not know God.
On the other, with the Psalm we can always cry to God once again:
"Answer us, show your face!".
And without a doubt, in our life, if our hearts are open, we can find
the important moments when God's presence really becomes tangible even for
us.
I now remember a little story that John Paul II told at the Spiritual
Exercises he preached in the Vatican when he was not vet Pope. He
recounted that after the war he was visited by a Russian official who was
a scientist and who said to him as a scientist: "I am certain that God
does not exist. Yet, if I am in the mountains, surrounded by his majestic
beauty by his grandeur. I am equally sure that the Creator does exist and
that God exists".
The beauty of creation is one of the sources where we can truly touch
God's beauty, we can see that the Creator exists and is good, which is
true as Sacred Scripture says in the Creation Narrative, that is. that God
conceived of this world and made it with his heart, his will and his
reason, and he found it good.
We too must be good in order to have an open heart and to perceive
God's true presence.
Then, hearing the Word of God in the solemn liturgical celebrations, in
celebrations of faith, in the great music of faith, we feel this presence.
I remember at ibis moment another little story which a Bishop on his ad
limina visit told me a little while ago.
There was a very intelligent woman who was not a Christian. She began
to listen to the great music of Bach, Handel and Mozart. She was
fascinated and said one day: "I must find the source of this beauty", and
the woman converted to Christianity, to the Catholic faith, because she
had discovered that this beauty has a source, and the source is the
presence of Christ in hearts, it is the revelation of Christ in this
world.
Hence, great feasts of faith, of liturgical celebration, but also
personal dialogue with Christ: he does not always respond but there are
times when he really responds. Then there is the friendship, the company
of faith.
Now, gathered here in Loreto, we see that faith unites, friendship
creates a company of travelling companions. And we sense that all this
does not derive from nothing but truly has a source. that the silent God
is also a God who speaks, that he reveals himself and above all. that we
ourselves can be witnesses of his presence, and from our faith a light
truly shines also for others.
Thus, I would say on the one hand, we must accept that God is silent in
this world, but we must not be deaf to his words or blind to his
appearance on so many occasions. We see the Lord's presence, especially in
creation. in the beautiful liturgy, in friendship within the Church, and
full of his presence, we can also give light to others.
Thus, I come to the second pan, or rather, the first part of your
question: it is difficult to speak to friends today about God and perhaps
even more difficult to talk about the Church, because they see in God only
the limit of our freedom, a God of commandments, of prohibitions, and the
Church as an institution that limits our freedom, that imposes
prohibitions upon us.
Nonetheless, we must try to make the living Church visible to them, not
this idea of a centre of power in the Church with these labels, but the
community of companions where, in spite of all life's problems that exist
for everyone, is born our joy of living.
Here, a third memory springs to mind. I was in Brazil, in Fazenda da
Esperança, this great community where
drug addicts are treated and rediscover hope, the joy of living in this
world: and they witnessed what the actual discovery that God exists meant
for their recovery from despair.
They thus understood that their life has meaning and they rediscovered
the joy of being in this world, the joy of facing the problems of human
life.
Therefore, in every human heart, despite all the problems that exist,
is a thirst for God, and when God disappears, the sun that gives light and
joy also disappears.
This thirst for the infinite that is its our hearts is also
demonstrated even in the reality of drugs: the human being wants to extend
the quality of life, to have more than life, to have the infinite, but
drugs are a lie, they are a fraud, because they do not extend life but
destroy it.
The great thirst that speaks to us of God and sets us on the path that
leads to him is true, but we must help one another. Christ carne to create
a network of communion in the world, where all together we might carry one
another, and thus help one another together to find the ways that lead to
life and to understand that the Commandments of God are not limits to our
freedom but the paths that guide us to the other, towards the fullness of
life.
Let us pray to the Lord to help us understand his presence, to be full
of his Revelation, his joy, to help one another to go forward in the
company of faith and with Christ to increasingly fund the true Face of
God, and hence, true life.
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