VATICAN CITY, APR 10, 2006 (VIS) - In the Paul VI Hall this morning, Benedict XVI received participants in the UNIV international congress of university students, accompanied by members of their families. The participants, from 32 countries, are meeting to consider the theme: "Culture and the means of social communications."
The Pope began his address by greeting Bishop Javier Echevarria Rodriguez, prelate of Opus Dei, the organization that promotes these meetings. He then reminded the university students that their presence in Rome over Easter gave them an opportunity "for a more intimate encounter with Christ."
"As I wrote in my Message for 21st World Youth Day," the Pope went on, "it is Christ Who guides your steps, your university studies and your friendships. ... For each of you, as for the Apostles, the personal meeting with the divine Master Who calls you friend can be the beginning of an extraordinary adventure: that of becoming apostles among your own peers, leading them to enjoy your own experience of friendship with God-made-Man."
The Pope noted the "great interest" of the theme chosen for this year's UNIV meeting, observing how, "unfortunately, ... in our own time, new technologies and the mass media do not always favor personal relations, sincere dialogue, and friendship between people; they do not always help to cultivate the interior nature of the relationship with God."
He went on: "I know that for you friendship and contacts with others, especially your own peers, constitute an important part of your daily lives. You must feel Jesus to be one of your closest friends, indeed the closest. ... Only in Him can you find the strength to give your brothers and sisters human affection and supernatural charity, in a spirit of service that is expressed above all in understanding."
"Those who have discovered Christ cannot but bring others to Him, because great joy cannot be kept for oneself but must be communicated. This is the task to which the Lord calls you, this is the 'apostolate of friendship' that St. Josemaria, founder of Opus Dei, describes as 'a personal friendship, self-sacrificing and sincere: face to face, heart to heart.' All Christians are invited to be friends of God and, with His grace, to attract their friends to Him. ... St. Josemaria also reminds you of certain key words for your spiritual itinerary: 'communion, union, conversation, confidence: word, bread, love'."
"If you cultivate friendship with Jesus, if you practice the Sacraments assiduously, especially the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, you will be able to become 'a new generation of apostles anchored firmly in the word of Christ, capable of responding to the challenges of our times and prepared to spread the Gospel far and wide'."
AC/CULTURE:COMMUNICATION/UNIV VIS 20060410 (470)
Tuesday, April 11
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