Faith is work of Holy Spirit
On Tuesday evening, 15 August, after greeting the multitude of young
people who had gathered to see him open the 15th World Youth Day at St
John Lateran, the Holy Father was driven to St Peter's Square for the
welcoming ceremony there. Expressing deep pleasure at the presence of
all the young people, the Pope told them that "these days, which
you will spend together in Rome at the World Youth Day, should help each
of you to see more clearly the glory which belongs to the Son of God and
to which we have been called in him by the Father. For this to happen,
your faith in Christ must grow and be strengthened". He recommended
that they let themselves "be moulded by the Holy Spirit". Here
is a translation of the Pope's address to the young people, which was
given in Italian.
1. Dear friends who have traveled so many miles in so many ways to
come to Rome, to the tombs of the Apostles, let me begin by putting to
you a question: what have you come here to find? You have come to
celebrate your Jubilee: the Jubilee of the young Church. Yours is
not just any journey: if you have set out on pilgrimage it is not just
for the sake recreation or an interest in culture. Well then, let me ask
again: what have you come in search of? Or rather, who have you come
here to find?
There can be only one answer to that: you have come in search of
Jesus Christ! But Jesus Christ has first gone in search of you. To
celebrate the Jubilee can have no other meaning than that of celebrating
and meeting Jesus Christ, the Word who took flesh and came to dwell
among us.
The Prologue of St John's Gospel, which has just now been
proclaimed, is in a sense Jesus' "visiting card". These words
invite us to fix our eyes on the mystery that he is. These words hold a
special message for you, dear young people: "In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God" (Jn 1:1-2).
Indicating to us the Word who is one in being with the Father, the
eternal Word generated as God from God and light from light, the
Evangelist takes us to the heart of the divine life, but also to
the wellspring of the world. This Word in fact is the beginning of
all creation: "all things were made through him, and without him
was not made anything that was made" (Jn 1:3). The whole created
world, before ever it came to be, was in the mind of God and was willed
by him in an eternal plan of love. Therefore, if we look at the world in
depth, allowing ourselves to marvel at the wisdom and beauty which God
has poured out upon it, we can see in it a reflection of the Word, which
biblical revelation unveils for us fully in the face of Jesus of
Nazareth. In a sense, creation is the first "revelation" of
him.
2. The Prologue continues with these words: "In him was life,
and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but
the darkness did not accept it" (Jn 1:4-5). For the Evangelist, the
light is life, and death, the enemy of life, is darkness. Through the
Word, all life appeared on the earth, and in the Word this life has its
perfect fulfilment.
Identifying light and life, John is thinking of the life that is not
just the biological life of the body but the life which comes from
sharing in the very life of Christ. The Evangelist says: "The true
light that enlightens every man was coming into the world" (Jn
1:9). This enlightenment was given to humanity on the night of
Bethlehem, when the eternal Word of the Father took a body from the
Virgin Mary, became man and was born into the world. From that time
onwards, every person who by faith shares in the mystery of that event
experiences some measure of that enlightenment.
Christ himself, announcing that he was the light of the world, said
one day: "While you have the light, believe in the light, that you
may become children of light" (Jn 12:36). This is a summons which
the followers of Christ pass on to one another from generation to
generation, trying to answer it in everyday life. Referring to this
summons, St Paul writes: "Walk always as children of light, for the
fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true"
(Eph 5:8-9).
3. The heart of John's Prologue is the proclamation that
"the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us" (1:14). A
little before this, the Evangelist had declared: "He came to his
own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received
him, he gave power to become children of God" (cf. 1:10-12). Dear
friends, are you among those who have accepted Christ? Your presence
here is already an answer to that question. You have come to Rome,
in this Jubilee of the 2,000th anniversary of Christ's birth, in order
to open your hearts to the power of life which is in him. You have come
here to rediscover the truth about creation and to recover a sense of
wonder at the beauty and the richness of the created world. You have
come to renew within yourselves the awareness of the dignity of man,
created in the image and likeness of God.
"We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the
Father, full of grace and truth" (Jn 1:14). A contemporary
philosopher has emphasized the significance of death in human life, to
the point of describing man as "a being made for death". The
Gospel, on the contrary, makes it clear that man is a being made for
life. Every person is called by God to share in the divine life. Man
is a being called to glory.
These days, which you will spend together in Rome at the World Youth
Day, should help each of you to see more clearly the glory which belongs
to the Son of God and to which we have been called in him by the Father.
For this to happen, your faith in Christ must grow and be strengthened.
4. 1 wish to bear witness to this faith here before all of you, young
friends, at the tomb of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord wished me to
succeed as Bishop of Rome. Beginning with myself, today I wish to tell
you that I believe firmly in Jesus Christ our Lord. Yes, I
believe, and I make my own the words of the Apostle Paul: "The life
I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave himself for me" (Gal 2:20).
I remember how as a child, in my own family, I learned to pray and
trust in God. I remember the life of my parish in Wadowice and that of
St Stanislaus Kostka, in Debniki in Kraków where I received my basic
training in Christian living. I cannot forget the experience of the war
and the years of work in a factory. My priestly vocation came to its
full maturity during the Second World War, during the occupation of
Poland. The tragedy of the War gave a particular colouring to the
gradual maturing of my vocation in life. In these circumstances, I
perceived a light shining ever more brightly within me: the Lord wanted
me to be a priest! I remember with feeling that moment in my life when,
on the morning of 1 November 1946, 1 was ordained a priest.
My Credo continues in my present service to the Church. On 16
October 1978, after my election to the See of Peter, when I was asked
"Do you accept?", I answered "With obedience in faith to
Christ, my Lord, and trusting in the Mother of Christ and of the Church,
no matter what the difficulties, I accept" (Redemptor hominis,
n. 2). From that time on, I have tried to carry out my mission, drawing
light and strength every day from the faith that binds me to Christ.
But my faith, like that of Peter and like the faith of each one of
you, is not just my doing, my attachment to the truth of Christ and the
Church. It is essentially and primarily the work of the
Holy Spirit, a gift of his grace. The Lord gives his Spirit to me as he
gives him to you, to help us say: "I believe", and then to use
us to bear witness to him in every comer of the world.
5. Dear friends, why do I want to offer you this personal testimony
at the beginning of your Jubilee? I do so in order to make it clear that
the journey of faith is part of everything that happens in our lives.
God is at work in the concrete and personal situations of each one of
us: through them, sometimes in truly mysterious ways, the Word
"made flesh", who came to live among us, makes himself present
to us.
Dear young people, do not let the time that the Lord gives you go by
as though everything happened by chance. St John has told us that
everything has been made in Christ. Therefore, believe unshakeably in
him. He directs the history of individuals as well as the history of
humanity. Certainly Christ respects our freedom, but in all the joyful
or bitter circumstances of life he never stops asking us to believe in
him, in his word, in the reality of the Church, in eternal life!
Don't ever think then that you are unknown to him, as if you were
just a number in an anonymous crowd. Each one of you is precious to
Christ, he knows you personally, he loves you tenderly, even when you
are not aware of it.
6. Dear friends, who face the third millennium with all the ardour of
your youth, give your full attention to the opportunity offered to you
by World Youth Day in this Church of Rome, which today more than ever is
your Church. Let yourselves be moulded by the Holy Spirit. Spend time in
prayer, letting the Spirit speak to your hearts. To pray means to give
some of your time to Christ, to entrust yourselves to him, to listen in
silence to his word, to make it echo in your hearts.
Treat these days as though they were a great week of spiritual
exercises; look for times of silence, prayer and recollection. Ask the
Holy Spirit to enlighten your minds, ask him for the gift of a living
faith which will forever give meaning to your lives, joining them to
Christ, the Word made flesh.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, who gave birth to Christ by the work of
the Holy Spirit, Mary Salus Populi Romani and Mother of all
peoples, and Sts Peter and Paul, and all the other saints and martyrs of
this Church and of all the Churches to which you belong, sustain you on
your journey.
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