JOHN PAUL II SPEAKS ABOUT HIS RECENT APOSTOLIC TRIP TO SPAIN

VATICAN CITY, MAY 7, 2003 (VIS) - In today's general audience, celebrated in St. Peter's Square, John Paul II spoke about his recent apostolic trip to Spain which took place on May 3 and 4, and had the theme "You will be my witnesses."

The Pope recalled that the two highlights of the pilgrimage were the encounter with young people on Saturday and the Mass in which he canonized five blesseds on Sunday.

During the get-together with young people at Cuatro Vientos Air Base on the outskirts of Madrid, "I proposed once again," he said, "the message of the Apostolic Letter 'Rosarium Virginis Mariae'. ... I invited young people to be ever-more men and women of a strong interior life, contemplating assiduously, together with Mary, Christ and His mysteries. This is precisely the most effective antidote against the dangers of consumerism to which the modern world is exposed. Faced by the persuasion of the fleeting values of the visible world, which a certain type of media promote, it is necessary to propose the lasting values of the spirit, which can be achieved only by returning to interior life through contemplation and prayer. I also noted with joy that young people know how to become protagonists of the new evangelization in the midst of their peers."

The Holy Father recalled that on Sunday he canonized Blesseds Pedro Poveda Castroverde, Jose Mary Rubio y Peralta, Genoveva Torres Morales, Angela de la Cruz and Maria Maravillas de Jesus. "These authentic disciples of Christ and witnesses of His Resurrection," he affirmed, "are an example for Christians around the world. ... May the believers and ecclesial communities of Spain be inspired by them so that also in our day their land, blessed by God, continue to produce abundant fruits of evangelical perfection. For this reason, I urged Christians in Spain to remain faithful to the Gospel, to defend and promote the life of the family, to safeguard and continually renew the Catholic identity of which the nation is so proud."

"This fifth apostolic trip to Spain," he concluded, "has confirmed in me a deep conviction: the old nations of Europe conserve a Christian soul that is one with the 'genius' and the history of its respective peoples."

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