Liturgy of the Word for Swiss Youth (13 June 1984)

On Wednesday, 13 June 1984, the Holy Father celebrated the Liturgy of the Word for young Swiss people in the Ice Stadium "La patinoire de St-Léonard" (Fribourg). To the youth he said,"Do not let yourselves be defeated by defeatism and discouragement! You are the world of tomorrow."  

Young People,

Thank you for your welcome, thank you for your presence. It is a great joy for me to share this evening with you. You are the bearers of the future of society and of the Church. I hope that for you, for me and for those who follow us from afar, these moments received together in joy, listening, reflection and prayer are a great sign of hope.

Through you and with you the Spirit of Christ wants to enliven his Church and build a more just, more united, more fraternal world. Let us be together, this evening and tomorrow, ever more open to the Spirit of Christ.

Dear Young People ,

1. Your testimonies and your questions would merit a long discussion. All the problems that you have raised are serious and show your concerns about the world and the Church of today and tomorrow. I cannot answer everything in a few moments. I hope that our exchange this evening will be prolonged with your movement leaders, with your catechists, your priests and your bishops.

For my part, I would like to focus on one or two points that seem fundamental to me and that are in line with the questions that young people all over the world are asking themselves. I have addressed the same problems with young people in many countries, in Rome, Paris, Lourdes, Vienna, Warsaw, Lisbon, Galway, Cardiff, Boston, Mexico, Belo Horizonte, Seoul.

The future of the world seems rather bleak to you. Unemployment, famine, violence, the threats posed to humanity by the stockpiling of weapons of a frightening capacity for destruction, the economic imbalances between the North and the South, the spiritual poverty that accompanies the consumer society in many countries, are all causes of worry and anxiety.

To you young people, I say: Do not let yourselves be defeated by defeatism and discouragement! You are the world of tomorrow. The future depends first of all on you. You receive from us, the elders, a world that may disappoint you, but it has its riches and its miseries, its values ​​and its counter-values. The extraordinary progress of science and technology is ambivalent . It can serve for the best and for the worst. It can save human lives or destroy them. It can allow a better and fairer distribution of goods in the world, or on the contrary increase their accumulation in the hands of small groups by increasing the misery of the masses. It can promote peace or on the contrary threaten humanity with terrible destruction.

2. Everything depends on the use that is made of the progress of science or technology. Everything ultimately depends on the hearts of men. It is the hearts of men that must be changed. It is doubtless necessary to modify certain structures that engender injustice and misery, but at the same time it is necessary to transform the hearts of men.

This, dear young people, is the great project of the world in which you must engage. Together, work with your hands, your heart, your intelligence and your faith to build a new world where it is truly possible for everyone to flourish and live in an atmosphere of security and mutual trust.

We do not build the future of humanity on hatred, violence, oppression of any kind. We do not build the future of humanity on the triumph of individual and collective selfishness. We cannot build the future of humanity on a false conception of freedom that does not respect the freedom of others. The consumer society in which we live and the fear of an uncertain future push us to seek immediate satisfaction for ourselves. We withdraw into ourselves, into our little personal happiness, our emotions, in a circle where heightened sensitivity is constantly on the lookout for new emotions that are quickly outdated, where we do not accept any other reference than ourselves and our pleasures. We cannot live like this. This is not the world you want. It would be a desperate world that empties human life of all meaning.

3. You planned to read the Gospel account of the multiplication of the loaves later. Jesus multiplied the loaves so that they could be shared among all those present, and he asked the disciples to perform this service.

Today, Christ calls you all to a serious and persevering commitment to a fraternal sharing of the material and spiritual goods that are immense in the world. And this begins today, in your schools, in your places of learning and work, in your neighborhoods, in your villages. It begins today with a true attention to others and their needs, with a spirit of service and fraternal mutual aid, with a sense of justice, with training in self-giving. The transformation of the world begins today in you and around you.

But to carry out this magnificent task which is your responsibility towards future humanity, there are some indispensable conditions. I would like to remind you of two of them.

4. To accomplish this mission of yours, you must not live on the surface of yourselves, but in depth. You must discover the profound dimension of the human person: the resources of your heart, the value of others, the meaning of events. A superficial existence engenders a painful dissatisfaction. Is this not the malaise felt by many young people who seek the paths of authenticity? Now authenticity is in the depths . But there are, alas, artificial depths that drugs give the illusion of reaching. There is a pseudo-science, a pseudo-freedom, a naive liberalization of sexuality that are drugs as dangerous and deadly as hallucinogens.

Becoming aware of oneself, being present to oneself, discovering the person's true aspirations, knowing one's qualities and limits, accepting them, constitute so many conditions for an authentic relationship with others. Finally, discovering, in ourselves and in others, the secret Presence of the God from whom we hold life, movement and being (Cf. Acts 17:28), is to discover the Source of a new life and a new dynamism to transform the world. Without me, Jesus tells us, you can do nothing (Cf. John 15:5).

If you can abstract yourself from the noise, learn silence in order to find yourselves and God within you, you will be able to resist the dissolving influences of the outside world and the ever-renewing inner complicities of your own egoism. As I said just a year ago to my young compatriots in Jasna Góra: “I am vigilant, which means that I strive to be a man of conscience. I do not stifle this conscience and I do not distort it; I call good and evil by their names, without obscuring them; I build up the good in myself, and I try to correct myself from evil” (Ioannis Pauli PP. II, Allocutio ad iuvenes in

“Jasna Góra” congregations lived , 5, die 18 iun. 1983: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II , VI, 1 (1983) 1565).

You will discover God's plan for each of you, inscribed in your very qualities and limits, at the cost of a certain discipline of reflection and silence.

Speaking of self-awareness, interiority, reflection and silence is not an invitation to flee reality, but on the contrary to explore it well until discovering its spiritual dimension. It is therefore not a question of being on the margins of life, but of entering it until the encounter, in faith, of the Spirit who acts in our hearts and in the hearts of men.

Our view of people and events is too often myopic, whereas we should approach every human person with infinite respect and read at the heart of events the deep issues, the values ​​exalted or flouted, the action of the Holy Spirit welcomed or thwarted by men.

Baptized and confirmed, the Holy Spirit has been given to you. He will guide you in the search for personal interiority and the hidden meaning of events. Be open to the Spirit of Christ: he is the Spirit of truth, and it is the truth that will set you free.

What I propose to you is great. This conquest of your interiority is the key to a life worth living, because it becomes an extraordinary discovery, never finished, of oneself, of others, of the world and of God. It is also the path to a fraternal communion between all men founded on communion with God in Christ and in his Spirit.

5. But to live this true spiritual adventure, it is important - and this is my second remark - to live as a team, as a Church. Is not the Church precisely the community of those who believe in Jesus and who want to let themselves be led by his Spirit from now on the paths of the Kingdom of God? If you want to build a renewed world, come together to deepen your outlook, to strengthen your points of view with the Word of God, to help each other in your daily commitments, to support each other in the days of weariness. The Church should be - what am I saying - must be this fraternal community where we can regain our strength, share our joys and worries, unite in faith and prayer, celebrate together in the Eucharist the sacrifice of the Cross and the real and mysterious Presence of the risen Christ, and nourish ourselves with Him and his Spirit. You are right, we must restore true relationships in our communities, in our parishes. We must live Sunday Mass more joyfully and more intensely. Take your place in your parish communities, be present to give the Church a new youth, to give her ever more a face “without spot or wrinkle”, as Christ wants ( Eph . 5:27). But allow me also to tell you: be patient! A Christian community made up of people of very different ages and mentalities cannot be changed in one day. Each has his or her qualities but also his or her imperfections and limitations. Should you not first recognize the value of what those who preceded you have already built - and often with difficulty? In this way you will demonstrate your maturity, and believe me, the whole Church is counting on you, it needs you to become more and more what it must be: a large, living and fraternal family of believers open to the Spirit of Christ, bearing witness in the heart of the world to the salvation brought by Christ, and manifesting the unfathomable Love which unites the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Yes, dear young people, animated by the Spirit of Christ, seek depth in a world where everything calls you to live as superficial consumers, come together, form living cells of the Church of Christ. You will then become, like Christ, beings existing for others. You will build with all the young people of the world a new civilization of Justice and Love.

Einen sehr herzlichen Gruß in ihrer Muttersprache richte ich heute Abend auch hier schon an die deutschsprachigen Jugendlichen in der Schweiz. Übermorgen werde ich Gelegenheit zu einer gleichen brüderlichen Begegnung mit ihnen en Einsiedeln haben. Meine Worte an die Jugend hier in Freiburg and dann in Einsiedeln gelten unterschiedslos euch allen, die ihr euch in diesem Land zu Christus bekennt oder euch noch auf dem Weg zu ihm befindet. Christus führe euch alle seinen Weg zur Wahrheit und zum Leben!

© Copyright 1984 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana