Vatican City, 28 September 2015 (VIS) –
The following is the full text of the Pope's message for the 31st
World Youth Day, to be held in Krakow, Poland in July 2016.
“Dear Young People,
We have come to the last stretch of our
pilgrimage to Krakow, the place where we will celebrate the 31st
World Youth Day next year in the month of July. We are being guided
on this long and challenging path by Jesus’ words taken from the
Sermon on the Mount. We began this journey in 2014 by meditating
together on the first Beatitude: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven' (Mt 5:3). The theme for 2015 was:
'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' (Mt 5:8).
During the year ahead, let us allow ourselves to be inspired by the
words: 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy'.
1. The Jubilee of Mercy
With this theme, the Krakow 2016 WYD
forms part of the Holy Year of Mercy and so becomes a Youth Jubilee
at world level. It is not the first time that an international youth
gathering has coincided with a Jubilee Year. Indeed, it was during
the Holy Year of the Redemption (1983/1984) that St. John Paul II
first called on young people from around the world to come together
on Palm Sunday. Then, during the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, over
two million young people from around 165 countries gathered in Rome
for the 15th World Youth Day. I am sure that the Youth Jubilee in
Krakow will be, as on those two previous occasions, one of the high
points of this Holy Year!
Perhaps some of you are asking: what is
this Jubilee Year that is celebrated in the Church? The scriptural
text of Leviticus can help us to understand the meaning of a
'jubilee' for the people of Israel. Every fifty years they heard the
sounding of a trumpet (jobel) calling them (jobil) to celebrate a
holy year as a time of reconciliation (jobal) for everyone. During
that time they had to renew their good relations with God, with their
neighbours and with creation, all in a spirit of gratuitousness. This
fostered, among other things, debt forgiveness, special help for
those who had fallen into poverty, an improvement in interpersonal
relations and the freeing of slaves.
Jesus Christ came to proclaim and bring
about the Lord’s everlasting time of grace. He brought good news to
the poor, freedom to prisoners, sight to the blind and freedom to the
oppressed. In Jesus, and particularly in his Paschal Mystery, the
deeper meaning of the jubilee is fully realised. When the Church
proclaims a jubilee in the name of Christ, we are all invited to
experience a wonderful time of grace. The Church must offer abundant
signs of God’s presence and closeness, and reawaken in people’s
hearts the ability to look to the essentials. In particular, this
Holy Year of Mercy is 'a time for the Church to rediscover the
meaning of the mission entrusted to her by the Lord on the day of
Easter: to be a sign and an instrument of the Father’s mercy'.
2. Merciful like the Father
The motto for this Extraordinary
Jubilee is 'Merciful like the Father'. This fits in with the theme of
the next WYD, so let us try to better understand the meaning of
divine mercy.
The Old Testament uses various terms
when it speaks about mercy. The most meaningful of these are hesed
and rahamim. The first, when applied to God, expresses God’s
unfailing fidelity to the Covenant with his people whom he loves and
forgives forever. The second, rahamim, which literally means
'entrails', can be translated as 'heartfelt mercy'. This particularly
brings to mind the maternal womb and helps us understand that God’s
love for his people is like that of a mother for her child. That is
how it is presented by the prophet Isaiah: 'Can a mother forget her
infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should
she forget, I will never forget you'. Love of this kind involves
making space for others within ourselves and being able to
sympathise, suffer and rejoice with our neighbours.
The biblical concept of mercy also
includes the tangible presence of love that is faithful, freely given
and able to forgive. In the following passage from Hosea, we have a
beautiful example of God’s love, which the prophet compares to that
of a father for his child: 'When Israel was a child I loved him; out
of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they
went from me... Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took
them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I
fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks... I
stooped to feed my child'. Despite the child’s wrong attitude that
deserves punishment, a father’s love is faithful. He always
forgives his repentant children. We see here how forgiveness is
always included in mercy. It is 'not an abstract idea, but a concrete
reality with which he reveals his love as of that of a father or a
mother, moved to the very depths out of love for their child. It
gushes forth from the depths naturally, full of tenderness and
compassion, indulgence and mercy.
The New Testament speaks to us of
divine mercy (eleos) as a synthesis of the work that Jesus came to
accomplish in the world in the name of the Father. Our Lord’s mercy
can be seen especially when he bends down to human misery and shows
his compassion for those in need of understanding, healing and
forgiveness. Everything in Jesus speaks of mercy. Indeed, he himself
is mercy.
In Chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel we
find the three parables of mercy: the lost sheep, the lost coin and
the parable of the prodigal son. In these three parables we are
struck by God’s joy, the joy that God feels when he finds and
forgives a sinner. Yes, it is God’s joy to forgive! This sums up
the whole of the Gospel. 'Each of us, each one of us, is that little
lost lamb, the coin that was mislaid; each one of us is that son who
has squandered his freedom on false idols, illusions of happiness,
and has lost everything. But God does not forget us; the Father never
abandons us. He is a patient Father, always waiting for us! He
respects our freedom, but He remains faithful forever. And when we
come back to him, He welcomes us like children into His house, for He
never ceases, not for one instant, to wait for us with love. And His
heart rejoices over every child who returns. He is celebrating
because He is joy. God has this joy, when one of us sinners goes to
Him and asks his forgiveness'.
God’s mercy is very real and we are
all called to experience it firsthand. When I was seventeen years
old, it happened one day that, as I was about to go out with friends,
I decided to stop into a church first. I met a priest there who
inspired great confidence, and I felt the desire to open my heart in
Confession. That meeting changed my life! I discovered that when we
open our hearts with humility and transparency, we can contemplate
God’s mercy in a very concrete way. I felt certain that, in the
person of that priest, God was already waiting for me even before I
took the step of entering that church. We keep looking for God, but
God is there before us, always looking for us, and He finds us first.
Maybe one of you feels something weighing on your heart. You are
thinking: I did this, I did that. Do not be afraid! God is waiting
for you! God is a Father and He is always waiting for us! It is so
wonderful to feel the merciful embrace of the Father in the sacrament
of Reconciliation, to discover that the confessional is a place of
mercy, and to allow ourselves to be touched by the merciful love of
the Lord Who always forgives us.
You, dear young man, dear young woman,
have you ever felt the gaze of everlasting love upon you, a gaze that
looks beyond your sins, limitations and failings, and continues to
have faith in you and to look upon your life with hope? Do you
realise how precious you are to God, who has given you everything out
of love? St. Paul tells us that 'God proves His love for us in that,
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us'. Do we really
understand the power of these words?
I know how much the WYD cross means to
all of you. It was a gift from St. John Paul II and has been with you
at all your World Meetings since 1984. So many changes and real
conversions have taken place in the lives of young people who have
encountered this simple bare cross! Perhaps you have asked yourselves
the question: what is the origin of the extraordinary power of the
cross? Here is the answer: the cross is the most eloquent sign of
God’s mercy! It tells us that the measure of God’s love for
humanity is to love without measure! Through the cross we can touch
God’s mercy and be touched by that mercy! Here I would recall the
episode of the two thieves crucified beside Jesus. One of them is
arrogant and does not admit that he is a sinner. He mocks the Lord.
The other acknowledges that he has done wrong; he turns to the Lord
saying: 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom'. Jesus
looks at him with infinite mercy and replies: 'Today you will be with
me in Paradise'. With which of the two do we identify? Is it with the
arrogant one who does not acknowledge his own mistakes? Or is it with
the other, who accepts that he is in need of divine mercy and begs
for it with all his heart? It is in the Lord, Who gave his life for
us on the cross, that we will always find that unconditional love
which sees our lives as something good and always gives us the chance
to start again.
3. The amazing joy of being instruments
of God’s mercy
The Word of God teaches us that 'it is
more blessed to give than to receive'. That is why the fifth
Beatitude declares that the merciful are blessed. We know that the
Lord loved us first. But we will be truly blessed and happy only when
we enter into the divine 'logic' of gift and gracious love, when we
discover that God has loved us infinitely in order to make us capable
of loving like Him, without measure. St. John says: 'Beloved, let us
love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is
begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know
God, for God is love... In this is love: not that we have loved God,
but that he He loved us and sent His Son as expiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another'.
After this very brief summary of how
the Lord bestows his mercy upon us, I would like to give you some
suggestions on how we can be instruments of this mercy for others.
I think of the example of Blessed Pier
Giorgio Frassati. He said, 'Jesus pays me a visit every morning in
Holy Communion, and I return the visit in the meagre way I know how,
visiting the poor'. Pier Giorgio was a young man who understood what
it means to have a merciful heart that responds to those most in
need. He gave them far more than material goods. He gave himself by
giving his time, his words and his capacity to listen. He served the
poor very quietly and unassumingly. He truly did what the Gospel
tells us: 'When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what
your right is doing,so that your almsgiving may be secret'. Imagine
that, on the day before his death when he was gravely ill, he was
giving directions on how his friends in need should be helped. At his
funeral, his family and friends were stunned by the presence of so
many poor people unknown to them. They had been befriended and helped
by the young Pier Giorgio.
I always like to link the Gospel
Beatitudes with Matthew 25, where Jesus presents us with the works of
mercy and tells us that we will be judged on them. I ask you, then,
to rediscover the corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give
drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, assist
the sick, visit the imprisoned and bury the dead. Nor should we
overlook the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, teach
the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the sorrowful, forgive
offences, patiently bear with troublesome people and pray to God for
the living and the dead. As you can see, mercy does not just imply
being a 'good person' nor is it mere sentimentality. It is the
measure of our authenticity as disciples of Jesus, and of our
credibility as Christians in today’s world.
If you want me to be very specific, I
would suggest that for the first seven months of 2016 you choose a
corporal and a spiritual work of mercy to practice each month. Find
inspiration in the prayer of St. Faustina, a humble apostle of Divine
Mercy in our times:
“Help me, O Lord,
…that my eyes may be merciful, so
that I will never be suspicious or judge by appearances, but always
look for what is beautiful in my neighbours’ souls and be of help
to them;
… that my ears may be merciful, so
that I will be attentive to my neighbours’ needs, and not
indifferent to their pains and complaints;
… that my tongue may be merciful, so
that I will never speak badly of others, but have a word of comfort
and forgiveness for all;
… that my hands may be merciful and
full of good deeds;
… that my feet may be merciful, so
that I will hasten to help my neighbour, despite my own fatigue and
weariness;
… that my heart may be merciful, so
that I myself will share in all the sufferings of my neighbour”
(Diary, 163).
The Divine Mercy message is a very
specific life plan because it involves action. One of the most
obvious works of mercy, and perhaps the most difficult to put into
practice, is to forgive those who have offended us, who have done us
wrong or whom we consider to be enemies. 'At times how hard it seems
to forgive! And yet pardon is the instrument placed into our fragile
hands to attain serenity of heart. To let go of anger, wrath,
violence, and revenge are necessary conditions to living joyfully'.
I meet so many young people who say
that they are tired of this world being so divided, with clashes
between supporters of different factions and so many wars, in some of
which religion is being used as justification for violence. We must
ask the Lord to give us the grace to be merciful to those who do us
wrong. Jesus on the cross prayed for those who had crucified Him:
'Father, forgive them, they know not what they do'. Mercy is the only
way to overcome evil. Justice is necessary, very much so, but by
itself it is not enough. Justice and mercy must go together. How I
wish that we could join together in a chorus of prayer, from the
depths of our hearts, to implore the Lord to have mercy on us and on
the whole world!
4. Krakow is expecting us!
Only a few months are left before we
meet in Poland. Krakow, the city of St. John Paul II and St. Faustina
Kowalska, is waiting for us with open arms and hearts. I believe that
Divine Providence led us to the decision to celebrate the Youth
Jubilee in that city which was home to those two great apostles of
mercy in our times. John Paul II realised that this is the time of
mercy. At the start of his pontificate, he wrote the encyclical Dives
in Misericordia. In the Holy Year 2000 he canonised Sister Faustina
and instituted the Feast of Divine Mercy, which now takes place on
the Second Sunday of Easter. In 2002 he personally inaugurated the
Divine Mercy Shrine in Krakow and entrusted the world to Divine
Mercy, in the desire that this message would reach all the peoples of
the earth and fill their hearts with hope: 'This spark needs to be
lighted by the grace of God. This fire of mercy needs to be passed on
to the world. In the mercy of God the world will find peace and
mankind will find happiness'.
Dear young people, at the Shrine in
Krakow dedicated to the merciful Jesus, where He is depicted in the
image venerated by the people of God, Jesus is waiting for you. He
has confidence in you and is counting on you! He has so many things
to say to each of you. Do not be afraid to look into His eyes, full
of infinite love for you. Open yourselves to His merciful gaze, so
ready to forgive all your sins. A look from Him can change your lives
and heal the wounds of your souls. His eyes can quench the thirst
that dwells deep in your young hearts, a thirst for love, for peace,
for joy and for true happiness. Come to Him and do not be afraid!
Come to him and say from the depths of your hearts: 'Jesus, I trust
in You!'. Let yourselves be touched by His boundless mercy, so that
in turn you may become apostles of mercy by your actions, words and
prayers in our world, wounded by selfishness, hatred and so much
despair.
Carry with you the flame of Christ’s
merciful love – as St. John Paul II said – in every sphere of
your daily life and to the very ends of the earth. In this mission, I
am with you with my encouragement and prayers. I entrust all of you
to Mary, Mother of Mercy, for this last stretch of the journey of
spiritual preparation for the next WYD in Krakow. I bless all of you
from my heart”.
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