WYD Message 2020: Pope invites
youth to take a risk and change the world
Message
pour la JMJ 2020: le Pape lance aux jeunes le «défi d’un tournant culturel»
El Papa a Jornada Mundial Diocesana de la juventud: Joven, levántate, sueña, arriésgate
El Papa a Jornada Mundial Diocesana de la juventud: Joven, levántate, sueña, arriésgate
Pope Francis in his
message for the 2020 diocesan World Youth Day, invites young people to be
missionary disciples and to give their passions and dreams free rein.
By Lydia O’Kane
It’s two years until the next World Youth Day,
which will take place in the city of Lisbon in 2022 and in that intervening
time, Pope Francis is inviting young people to reflect on the themes for the
diocesan World Youth Days of 2020 and 2021.
“Young man, I say to you, arise!” is the 2020
theme taken from Luke’s Gospel; and 2021 features the biblical text taken from
the Acts of the Apostles: “Stand up. I appoint you as a witness of what you
have seen”.
“Arise” in 2020
Focusing his attention on this year’s message,
which is divided into five sections, Pope Francis says that for the young
person who has lost his or her vitality, dreams, optimism and enthusiasm, there
is hope.
That hope is in Jesus, who the Pope says, “stands
before you as once he stood before the dead son of the widow, and with all the
power of His resurrection He urges you: ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’”
That passage in the Bible, the Pontiff explains,
“tells us how Jesus, upon entering the town of Nain in Galilee, came upon the
funeral procession of a young person, the only son of a widowed mother. Jesus,
struck by the woman’s heartrending grief, miraculously restored her son to
life.”
Pain and death
In the first section of the message, Pope Francis
reflects on Jesus’ “ability to see pain and death.” He points out that Jesus,
“in the midst of the crowd, makes out the face of a woman in great pain.
His ability to see generates encounter, the source of new life.”
In today’s world the Pope asks, how often do we
end up being eyewitnesses of events without ever experiencing them in real
time? Sometimes, he adds, “our first reaction is to take a picture with
our cell phone, without even bothering to look into the eyes of the persons involved.”
The Pontiff goes on to say that many young people
are “‘dead’ because they feel hopeless.” Others, he continues, “waste
their lives with superficial things, thinking they are alive while in fact they
are dead within”.
“Negative situations”, the Pope emphasizes in the
message, “can also be the result of personal failure, whenever something we
care about, something we were committed to, no longer seems to be working or
giving the desired results.” But failures, he underlines, “are part of the
life of every human being; sometimes they can also end up being a grace.”
A compassionate heart
In the second section of the message, “to have
compassion”, Pope Francis counsels young people not to be robbed of this
sensitivity.
“If you can learn to weep with those who are
weeping”, Pope Francis says, “you will find true happiness.” “So many of
your contemporaries are disadvantaged and victims of violence and persecution.
Let their wounds become your own, and you will be bearers of hope in this
world.”
The closeness of God
To come forward and “touch” is the
third section of the message, and the Pope notes how Jesus in the passage from
Luke’s Gospel stops the funeral procession and demonstrates His closeness.
The touch of Jesus, the living One, comments the Pope, communicates life.
Pope Francis goes on to says that “if you can
feel God’s immense love for every living creature – especially our brothers and
sisters who experience hunger and thirst, or are sick or naked or imprisoned –
then you will be able to draw near to them as He does.”
The Divine Word gives life meaning
In the penultimate section, Pope Francis writes
that “people who are not on a journey never fall; then again,
neither do they move forward.”
“This life is really a new creation, a new birth,
not just a form of psychological conditioning”, the Pope says.
He also stresses that young people need to look
deeper than mere fashionable phrases and words. It is Jesus’ Word, he says,
that has a deeper resonance, because “it goes infinitely deeper. It is a
divine and creative Word, which alone can bring the dead to life.”
An invitation to dream
In the final section entitled “Living the new
life as ‘risen ones’”, Pope Francis returns to the Gospel passage which
recounts that the young man “began to speak”.
Those touched and restored to life by Jesus, the
Pope says, “immediately speak up and express without hesitation or fear what
has happened deep within them: their personality, desires, needs and
dreams.”
Concluding his message, the Pope points out that
today, “we are often ‘connected’ but not communicating. The
indiscriminate use of electronic devices can keep us constantly glued to the
screen.”
With this Message, Pope Francis writes, “I would
like to join you, young people, in calling for a cultural change, based on
Jesus’ command to ‘arise’. He calls us to embrace a reality that is so
much more than virtual.”
“Arise!” he adds, is also an invitation to
“dream”, to “take a risk”, to be “committed to changing the world, to rekindle
your hopes and aspirations, and to contemplate the heavens, the stars and the
world around you.”
The Pope then invites young people to “give their
passions and dreams free rein, “and, through them, offer the world, the Church
and other young people something beautiful, whether in the realm of the spirit,
the arts or society… Make your voices heard.”
Diocesan World Youth Day 2020 is marked on Palm
Sunday, April 5.
MESSAGGIO
DEL SANTO PADRE FRANCESCO PER LA XXXV GIORNATA MONDIALE DELLA GIOVENTÙ
AR - DE - EN - ES - FR - IT - PL - PT
AR - DE - EN - ES - FR - IT - PL - PT
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento