Ten years of WYD in Madrid: a manifestation of faith for Spain and the worldWYD 2016 in Krakow: in the footsteps of St. John Paul II in PolandPope Francis' Message for WYD 2023
Dear young people:
The issue of WYD Panama was: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38). After this event, we set out on the road to a new destiny.Lisbon 2023-Let God's pressing invitation to rise up echo in our hearts. In 2020 we meditate on the words of Jesus: "Young man, I say to you, arise" (Lk. 7:14). Last year we were inspired by the Apostle Paul, to whom the Risen Lord said: "Arise! I make you a witness of the things you have seen" (cf. Acts 26:16). In the stretch that remains before reaching Lisbon, we will walk alongside the Virgin of Nazareth who, immediately after the Annunciation, "rose up and departed without delay" (Lk 1:39) to go and help her cousin Elizabeth. The verb common to all three themes is to rise, an expression that - it is good to remember - also takes on the meaning of "to rise again", "to awaken to life".
In these recent times, which have been so difficult, when humanity, already tested by the trauma of the pandemic, is torn apart by the drama of war, Mary reopens for everyone, and especially for you, who are young like her, the path of closeness and encounter. I hope, and I firmly believe, that the experience that many of you will live in Lisbon next August will represent a new beginning for you, young people, and - with you - for all humanity.
Maria stood up
Mary, after the annunciation, could have concentrated on herself, on the worries and fears due to her new condition. But no; she trusted fully in God. She thought rather of Elizabeth. She got up and went out into the sunlight, where there is life and movement. Although the angel's shocking announcement may have caused an "earthquake" in her plans, the young woman did not allow herself to be paralyzed, because in her was Jesus, the power of the resurrection. Within her was already the Lamb slain, but always alive. She got up and set out, because she was sure that God's plans were the best possible plan for her life. Mary became the temple of God, the image of the Church on the way, the Church that goes out and puts herself at the service, the Church bearer of the Good News.
To experience the presence of the Risen Christ in one's own life, to encounter him "alive", is the greatest spiritual joy, an explosion of light that can leave no one "still". It sets us in motion immediately and impels us to bring this news to others, to bear witness to the joy of this encounter. This is what animated the haste of the first disciples in the days following the resurrection: "The women, fearful but full of joy, went quickly away from the tomb and went to tell the disciples the news" (Mt 28:8).
The resurrection stories often use two verbs: to awaken and to arise. With them, the Lord urges us to go out into the light, to let ourselves be led by Him to cross the threshold of all our closed doors. "It is a significant image for the Church. We too, as disciples of the Lord and as a Christian community, are called to rise up quickly to enter into the dynamism of the resurrection and let ourselves be guided by the Lord on the paths that he wants to show us" (Homily on the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, June 29, 2022).
The Mother of the Lord is the model of young people in movement, not immobile in front of the mirror.
contemplating her own image or "caught" in the nets. She was totally oriented toward the
exterior. She is the paschal woman, in a permanent state of exodus, of going out of herself towards the great
Another who is God and towards the others, the brothers and sisters, especially the more
needy, as was her cousin Elizabeth.
...and departed without delay
St. Ambrose of Milan, in his commentary on Luke's Gospel, writes that Mary set out for the mountain because "full of joy and without delay [...] she felt impelled by the desire to fulfill a duty of piety, eager to render her services and hastened by the intensity of her joy. Filled already totally with God, where could Mary go in haste if not to the heights? Indeed, the grace of the Holy Spirit ignores slowness". Mary's haste is, therefore, the solicitude of service, of joyful proclamation, of prompt response to the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Mary let herself be challenged by her elderly cousin's need. She did not back down, she did not remain indifferent. She thought more of others than of herself. And this gave dynamism and enthusiasm to her life. Each of you can ask yourself: How do I react to the needs I see around me? Do I immediately think of a justification to disengage myself, or do I take an interest and make myself available? Of course, you cannot solve all the world's problems. But perhaps you can start with the ones closest to you, with the problems in your own area. Mother Teresa was once told, "What you are doing is just a drop in the ocean". And she replied, "But if I didn't do it, the ocean would be one drop less.
How many people in the world are waiting for a visit from someone who cares for them! How many elderly people, how many sick people, prisoners, refugees need our compassionate gaze, our visit, a brother or sister who breaks the barriers of indifference!
Dear young people, what "rush" moves you? What makes you feel the urge to move, so much so that you cannot stand still? Many - affected by realities such as pandemics, war, forced migration, poverty, violence, climatic catastrophes - ask themselves: Why is this happening to me? Why just me? Why now? Therefore, the central question of our existence is: For whom am I? (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Christus vivit, 286).
The haste of the young woman of Nazareth is that of those who have received extraordinary gifts from the Lord and cannot help but share, to make the immense grace they have experienced overflow. It is the haste of those who know how to put the needs of others above their own. Mary is an example of a young person who does not waste time seeking the attention or approval of others - as happens when we depend on "likes" on social networks - but moves to seek the most genuine connection, that which arises from encounter, sharing, love and service.
Since the Annunciation, from the time she went to visit her cousin for the first time, Mary had not
stops crossing time and space to visit her children in need of her solicitous help. Our
If it is inhabited by God, walking leads us directly to the heart of each of our
How many testimonies we receive from people "visited" by Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ.
Jesus and our Mother! In how many remote places of the earth, throughout the centuries -with
apparitions or special graces - Mary has visited her people! There is practically no place in
this earth that has not been visited by her. The Mother of God walks among her people,
moved by a loving tenderness, and assumes its anguish and vicissitudes. And there where there is a sanctuary,
a church, a chapel dedicated to her, her children flocking in great numbers. How many expressions of
popular piety! Pilgrimages, feasts, supplications, the welcoming of images in homes and so many others are concrete examples of the living relationship between the Mother of the Lord and her people, who visit each other.
The "good" rush always pushes us upwards and towards others
The good haste always pushes us upwards and towards others. There is also a rush that is not good, such as the one that leads us to live superficially, to take everything lightly, without commitment or attention, without really participating in the things we do; the rush when we live, study, work, go out with others without putting our heads, much less our hearts, into it. It can happen in interpersonal relationships: in the family, when we do not really listen to others or dedicate time to them; in friendships, when we expect a friend to entertain us and satisfy our needs, but we avoid him immediately and turn to another if we see that he is in crisis and needs us; and even in affective relationships, between boyfriends and girlfriends, few have the patience to know and understand each other thoroughly. We can have this same attitude at school, at work and in other areas of daily life. Well, all these things lived in haste are unlikely to bear fruit. There is a risk that they will remain sterile. This is what we read in the book of Proverbs: "The plans of the industrious man are pure gain; he who is hasty - evil haste - ends in destitution" (21:5).
When Mary finally arrived at the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth, a wonderful encounter took place. Elizabeth had experienced a prodigious intervention of God upon her, who had given her a son in her old age. She would have had reason enough to speak first of herself, but she was not full of herself, but inclined to welcome her young cousin and the fruit of her womb. As soon as she heard her greeting, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. These surprises and irruptions of the Spirit occur when we experience true hospitality, when we put the guest at the center, and not ourselves. This is also what we see in the story of Zacchaeus. In Luke 19:5-6 we read: "When Jesus came to the place [where Zacchaeus was], he looked up and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house. Zacchaeus came down quickly and received him joyfully."
It has happened to many of us that, unexpectedly, Jesus came to meet us: for the first time, we experienced in him a closeness, a respect, an absence of prejudice and condemnation, a look of mercy that we had never found in others. Not only that, we also felt that it was not enough for Jesus to look at us from afar, but that he wanted to be with us, he wanted to share his life with us. The joy of this experience awakened in us a rush to welcome Him, an urgency to be with Him and to know Him better. Elizabeth and Zechariah welcomed Mary and Jesus. Let us learn from these two elders the meaning of hospitality! Ask your parents and grandparents, and also the older members of your communities, what it means for them to be hospitable to God and to others. It will do them good to listen to the experience of those who have gone before them.
Dear young people, it is time to set out again without delay on the path of concrete encounters, of a true acceptance of those who are different from us, as happened between the young Mary and the elderly Elizabeth. Only in this way will we overcome distances - between generations, between social classes, between ethnic groups and categories of all kinds - and even wars. Young people are always the hope of a new unity for a fragmented and divided humanity. But only if they have memory, only if they listen to the dramas and dreams of their elders. "It is not by chance that war has returned to Europe at a time when the generation that lived through it in the last century is disappearing" (Message for the Second World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly). An alliance between the young and the old is necessary, so as not to forget the lessons of history, to overcome the polarizations and extremisms of this time.
Writing to the Ephesians, St. Paul announced: 'Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For Christ is our peace; he has united the two peoples into one, breaking down the wall of enmity that separated them through his own flesh' (2:13-14). Jesus is God's answer to the challenges of humanity in every age. And this response, Mary carried within her when she went to meet Elizabeth. Mary's greatest gift to her elderly relative was to bring Jesus to her. Certainly, concrete help is also invaluable. But nothing else could have filled Zechariah's house with such great joy and meaning as the presence of Jesus in the Virgin's womb, which had become the tabernacle of the living God. In that mountainous region, Jesus, by his presence alone, without saying a word, delivered his first "sermon on the mount": he proclaimed in silence the blessing of the little ones and the humble who entrust themselves to God's mercy.
My message to you, young people, the great message of which the Church is the bearer, is Jesus!
Yes, Himself, His infinite love for each one of us, His salvation and the new life He has given us. And Mary is the model of how to welcome this immense gift into our lives and communicate it to others, making us in turn bearers of Christ, bearers of his compassionate love, of his generous service to suffering humanity.
All together in Lisbon!
Maria was a young woman like many of you. She was one of us. Bishop Tonino Bello wrote about her: "Holy Mary, [...] we well know that you were destined for voyages on the high seas, but if we force you to sail close to the coast, it is not because we want to reduce you to the levels of our small coastline. It is because, seeing you so close to the shores of our discouragement, we can be saved by the awareness that we too have been called to venture, like you, on the oceans of freedom" (Maria, mujer de nuestros días, Paulinas, Madrid 1996, 11).
From Portugal, as I recalled in the first Message of this trilogy, in the 15th and 16th centuries, numerous young people - many of them missionaries - set out for unknown lands, also to share their experience of Jesus with other peoples and nations (cf. WYD 2020 Message). And to this land, at the beginning of the 20th century, Mary wished to make a special visit, when from Fatima she sent to all generations the powerful and admirable message of God's love that calls to conversion, to true freedom. To each and every one of you I renew my warm invitation to participate in the great intercontinental pilgrimage of young people that will culminate in WYD in Lisbon in August of next year; and I remind you that on November 20, the Solemnity of Christ the King, we will celebrate World Youth Day in the particular Churches of the whole world. In this regard, the recent document of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life - Pastoral Guidelines for the Celebration of World Youth Day in the Particular Churches - can be of great help to all those involved in youth ministry.
Dear young people, I hope that at WYD you will once again experience the joy of encountering God and your brothers and sisters. After long periods of distance and isolation, in Lisbon - with God's help - we will rediscover together the joy of the fraternal embrace between peoples and between generations, the embrace of reconciliation and peace, the embrace of a new missionary fraternity! May the Holy Spirit kindle in your hearts the desire to rise up and the joy of walking together, in synodal style, abandoning false frontiers. The time to rise up is now! Let us rise up without delay! And, like Mary, let us carry Jesus within us to communicate him to all. In this beautiful moment of your lives, go forward, do not postpone what the Spirit can do in you. With all my heart I bless your dreams and your steps.
Rome, St. John Lateran, 15 August 2022, Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
FRANCISCO
