To University Students in Madrid (3 November 1982)

On Wednesday, 3 November 1982, the Holy Father spoke to university students in Madrid, observing that “the dry data of technical culture or information technology are not enough for you to give a foundation to your life.” Rather, he announced to them, like Saint Paul in Athens, “the living God and his Son, Jesus Christ, who died and now, master of life and death, is the Living One forever and ever”  (cf. Acts 17 , 31; Ap 1, 18).

Dear university students.

1. At the end of my previous meeting, which was largely yours, you gave me the pleasant surprise of coming in large numbers to greet me. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. For my part, I respond with a cordial greeting to you and to all the university students in Spain.

I know your life from personal experience, I deeply respect and understand it. I encourage you to continue cultivating the "university spirit", this spirit which is openness and, above all, an itinerary of research. Because saying "university" means research, investigation, the future of society.

2. I know that in your generosity as young people you are not satisfied with many aspects of current society, which you would like to be more just and supportive. I also know that you are looking for something that can give reason, seriously, to the deepest part of yourselves, to this depth of the human spirit that you feel, or at least sense. I know that the dry data of technical culture or information technology are not enough for you to give a foundation to your life. It is not enough for you to have dispersed and fragmentary news and knowledge. You sense that it is necessary to find a reality that gives those disintegrated realities a decisive and ultimate meaning.

I feel it is my duty to proclaim before you that this something, "the unknown God" that men are groping for, exists and is the foundation of everything and is "he who makes all things new" (cf. Acts 17 , 23 s; Rev 21, 5). Like Paul in the Areopagus of Athens, I announce to you today the living God and his Son, Jesus Christ, who died and now, master of life and death, is the Living One forever and ever (cf. Acts 17 , 31; Ap 1, 18).

3. Today's society has many affinities with the one in which the first preaching of the Gospel made its way. We feel, like many men of that era, prisoners of our impotence, submerged in various offers of salvation that we recognize as not definitive and deceptive. However, as happened to the men of that ancient generation, from the experience of our limitations, we perceive today that a gift that surpasses us, a supremely welcoming mercy, can save us fully, offering us the gratuitousness of his love.

I, a servant of Jesus Christ, have the mission to tell you that this salvation is sure for those who believe and trust in the name of Jesus. Yes, Christ - the Son of the living God - bestows all his greatness on our personal being, he is the guarantor of what we think and want to be, he is the one who makes it possible to live life with dignity and make it available to others, to help them grow in their dignity; he who endorses the genuine contributions of human sciences and knowledge, and projects them into greater horizons; he who enables us to face the future without fear, committed to building the "utopia" of a new, more just and more human world.

4. Welcome Christ with an open heart. Welcome Christ into his Church which is his permanent presence in history. Because “Christ plus the Church is nothing other than Christ alone” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentarium in Ephesios ).

The Church is the transparency of Christ among men, sometimes obscured by the conduct of Christians, sinners "like other men" ( Lk 18, 11). The Church, when observed with eyes of faith, is not a screen that obstructs the communion of men with Christ, the Savior. Those who persevere close to the mysterious traveler, like the disciples of Emmaus, end up recognizing him and will perhaps say like them: "Didn't our hearts burn in his chest while he conversed with us along the way?" ( Lk 24, 32).

Allow me to end these words with the verses of one of the hymns of the liturgy: Stay with us / as the evening comes. / How will we meet you / as the day declines / if your path is not our path? / ( Hymnus ad Vesperas ).

May Christ always accompany you on your journey and bless you, dear university students.

Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Copyright © Dicastery for Communication - Libreria Editrice Vaticana