Vatican City, 17 February 2015 (VIS) -
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” is the
title of the Holy Father's message for the thirtieth World Youth Day,
celebrated every year on Palm Sunday. The Pope continues his
reflection on the Beatitudes, and after referring to his previous
messages on “revolutionary meaning” and the “powerful summons
of Jesus to embark courageously upon the exciting quest for
happiness”, he goes on to focus on “the desire for happiness”,
starting from the first chapters of the Book of Genesis which “shows
to us the splendid beatitude to which we are called” and “consists
in perfect communion with God, with others, with nature, and with
ourselves”.
Francis divides his message into four
parts. After speaking about the desire for happiness, he analyses the
sixth beatitude paragraph by paragraph, explaining purity of heart.
If the heart is considered in the Bible to be the “centre of the
emotions, thoughts and intentions of the human person”, its purity
consists fundamentally in the absence of contaminants such as hate,
cowardice, and envy. He then turns to the care for creation, so that
it does not become contaminated, and invites a “human ecology”
that “ will help us to breathe the pure air that comes from beauty,
from true love, and from holiness”. Francis also urged the young
not to allow their ability to love or be loved be instrumentalised or
impaired, and not to trivialise love.
In the third part, “... for they
shall see God”, he recalls that Jesus “awaits us always with open
arms”, and calls to all “in whatever place or situation you find
yourself”. “Encountering God in prayer, the reading of the Bible
and in fraternal life will help you better to know the Lord and
yourselves”, writes the Pope. “Like the disciples on the way to
Emmaus, the Lord’s voice will make your hearts burn within you. He
will open your eyes to recognise his presence and to discover the
loving plan he has for your life”.
“Have the courage to be happy”,
Francis concludes, recalling that this year's World Youth Day begins
the final stage in preparation for the next great global event to be
held in Krakow, Poland in 2016, thirty years after St. John Paul II
instituted the World Youth Days in the Church. This “pilgrimage of
young people from every continent under the guidance of the Successor
of Peter has truly been a providential and prophetic initiative”.
The full text of the message is given
below:
Dear Young Friends,
We continue our spiritual pilgrimage
toward Krakow, where in July 2016 the next international World Youth
Day will be held. As our guide for the journey we have chosen the
Beatitudes. Last year we reflected on the beatitude of the poor in
spirit, within the greater context of the Sermon on the Mount.
Together we discovered the revolutionary meaning of the Beatitudes
and the powerful summons of Jesus to embark courageously upon the
exciting quest for happiness. This year we will reflect on the sixth
beatitude: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”.
1. The desire for happiness
The word “blessed”, or “happy”,
occurs nine times in this, Jesus’ first great sermon. It is like a
refrain reminding us of the Lord’s call to advance together with
him on a road which, for all its many challenges, leads to true
happiness.
Dear young friends, this search for
happiness is shared by people of all times and all ages. God has
placed in the heart of every man and woman an irrepressible desire
for happiness, for fulfilment. Have you not noticed that your hearts
are restless, always searching for a treasure which can satisfy their
thirst for the infinite?
The first chapters of the Book of
Genesis show us the splendid “beatitude” to which we are called.
It consists in perfect communion with God, with others, with nature,
and with ourselves. To approach God freely, to see him and to be
close to him, was part of his plan for us from the beginning; his
divine light was meant to illumine every human relationship with
truth and transparency. In the state of original purity, there was no
need to put on masks, to engage in ploys or to attempt to conceal
ourselves from one another. Everything was clear and pure.
When Adam and Eve yielded to temptation
and broke off this relationship of trusting communion with God, sin
entered into human history. The effects were immediately evident,
within themselves, in their relationship with each other and with
nature. And how dramatic the effects are! Our original purity as
defiled. From that time on, we were no longer capable of closeness to
God. Men and women began to conceal themselves, to cover their
nakedness. Lacking the light which comes from seeing the Lord, they
saw everything around them in a distorted fashion, myopically. The
inner compass which had guided them in their quest for happiness lost
its point of reference, and the attractions of power, wealth,
possessions, and a desire for pleasure at all costs, led them to the
abyss of sorrow and anguish.
In the Psalms we hear the heartfelt
plea which mankind makes to God: “What can bring us happiness? Let
the light of your face shine on us, O Lord”. The Father, in his
infinite goodness, responded to this plea by sending his Son. In
Jesus, God has taken on a human face. Through his Incarnation, life,
death and resurrection, Jesus frees us from sin and opens new and
hitherto unimaginable horizons.
Dear young men and women, in Christ you
find fulfilled your every desire for goodness and happiness. He alone
can satisfy your deepest longings, which are so often clouded by
deceptive worldly promises. As Saint John Paul II said: “He is the
beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with
that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise;
it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he
who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that
others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do
something great with your lives”.
2. Blessed are the pure in heart
Let us now try to understand more fully
how this blessedness comes about through purity of heart. First of
all, we need to appreciate the biblical meaning of the word heart. In
Hebrew thought, the heart is the centre of the emotions, thoughts and
intentions of the human person. Since the Bible teaches us that God
does not look to appearances, but to the heart, we can also say that
it is from the heart that we see God. This is because the heart is
really the human being in his or her totality as a unity of body and
soul, in his or her ability to love and to be loved.
As for the definition of the word pure,
however, the Greek word used by the evangelist Matthew is katharos,
which basically means clean, pure, undefiled. In the Gospel we see
Jesus reject a certain conception of ritual purity bound to exterior
practices, one which forbade all contact with things and people
(including lepers and strangers) considered impure. To the Pharisees
who, like so many Jews of their time, ate nothing without first
performing ritual ablutions and observing the many traditions
associated with cleansing vessels, Jesus responds categorically:
“There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile
him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him. For
from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts,
fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness”.
In what, then, does the happiness born
of a pure heart consist? From Jesus’ list of the evils which make
someone impure, we see that the question has to do above all with the
area of our relationships. Each one of us must learn to discern what
can “defile” his or her heart and to form his or her conscience
rightly and sensibly, so as to be capable of “discerning the will
of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”. We need to show a
healthy concern for creation, for the purity of our air, water and
food, but how much more do we need to protect the purity of what is
most precious of all: our heart and our relationships. This “human
ecology” will help us to breathe the pure air that comes from
beauty, from true love, and from holiness.
Once I asked you the question: “Where
is your treasure? In what does your heart find its rest?”. Our
hearts can be attached to true or false treasures, they can find
genuine rest or they can simply slumber, becoming lazy and lethargic.
The greatest good we can have in life is our relationship with God.
Are you convinced of this? Do you realise how much you are worth in
the eyes of God? Do you know that you are loved and welcomed by him
unconditionally, as indeed you are? Once we lose our sense of this,
we human beings become an incomprehensible enigma, for it is the
knowledge that we are loved unconditionally by God which gives
meaning to our lives. Do you remember the conversation that Jesus had
with the rich young man? The evangelist Mark observes that the Lord
looked upon him and loved him, and invited him to follow him and thus
to find true riches. I hope, dear young friends, that this loving
gaze of Christ will accompany each of you throughout life.
Youth is a time of life when your
desire for a love which is genuine, beautiful and expansive begins to
blossom in your hearts. How powerful is this ability to love and to
be loved! Do not let this precious treasure be debased, destroyed or
spoiled. That is what happens when we start to use our neighbours for
our own selfish ends, even as objects of pleasure. Hearts are broken
and sadness follows upon these negative experiences. I urge you: Do
not be afraid of true love, the love that Jesus teaches us and which
St. Paul describes as “patient and kind”. Paul says: “Love is
not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not
insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not
rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”.
In encouraging you to rediscover the
beauty of the human vocation to love, I also urge you to rebel
against the widespread tendency to reduce love to something banal,
reducing it to its sexual aspect alone, deprived of its essential
characteristics of beauty, communion, fidelity and responsibility.
Dear young friends, “in a culture of relativism and the ephemeral,
many preach the importance of ‘enjoying’ the moment. They say
that it is not worth making a life-long commitment, making a
definitive decision, ‘for ever’, because we do not know what
tomorrow will bring. I ask you, instead, to be revolutionaries, I ask
you to swim against the tide; yes, I am asking you to rebel against
this culture that sees everything as temporary and that ultimately
believes you are incapable of responsibility, that believes you are
incapable of true love. I have confidence in you and I pray for you.
Have the courage to ‘swim against the tide’. And also have the
courage to be happy”.
You young people are brave adventurers!
If you allow yourselves to discover the rich teachings of the Church
on love, you will discover that Christianity does not consist of a
series of prohibitions which stifle our desire for happiness, but
rather a project for life capable of captivating our hearts.
3. … for they shall see God
In the heart of each man and woman, the
Lord’s invitation constantly resounds: “Seek my face!”. At the
same time, we must always realise that we are poor sinners. For
example, we read in the Book of Psalms: “Who can climb the mountain
of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? The one who has clean
hands and a pure heart”. But we must never be afraid or
discouraged: throughout the Bible and in the history of each one of
us we see that it is always God who takes the first step. He purifies
us so that we can come into his presence.
When the prophet Isaiah heard the
Lord’s call to speak in his name, he was terrified and said: “Woe
is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips”. And yet the
Lord purified him, sending to him an angel who touched his lips,
saying: “Your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven”. In
the New Testament, when on the shores of lake Genessaret Jesus called
his first disciples and performed the sign of the miraculous catch of
fish, Simon Peter fell at his feet, exclaiming: “Depart from me,
for I am a sinful man, O Lord”. Jesus’ reply was immediate: “Do
not be afraid; henceforth you will be fishers of men”. And when one
of the disciples of Jesus asked him: “Lord, show us the Father, and
we shall be satisfied”, the Master replied: “He who has seen me
has seen the Father.
The Lord’s invitation to encounter
him is made to each of you, in whatever place or situation you find
yourself. It suffices to have the desire for “a renewed personal
encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him
encounter you; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day”.
We are all sinners, needing to be purified by the Lord. But it is
enough to take a small step towards Jesus to realise that he awaits
us always with open arms, particularly in the sacrament of
Reconciliation, a privileged opportunity to encounter that divine
mercy which purifies us and renews our hearts.
Dear young people, the Lord wants to
meet us, to let himself “be seen” by us. “And how?”, you
might ask me. St. Teresa of Avila, born in Spain five hundred years
ago, even as a young girl, said to her parents, “I want to see
God”. She subsequently discovered the way of prayer as “an
intimate friendship with the One who makes us feel loved”. So my
question to you is this: “Are you praying?” Do you know that you
can speak with Jesus, with the Father, with the Holy Spirit, as you
speak to a friend? And not just any friend, but the greatest and most
trusted of your friends! You will discover what one of his
parishioners told the Curé of Ars: “When I pray before the
tabernacle, ‘I look at him, and he looks at me’”.
Once again I invite you to encounter
the Lord by frequently reading sacred Scripture. If you are not
already in the habit of doing so, begin with the Gospels. Read a line
or two each day. Let God’s word speak to your heart and enlighten
your path. You will discover that God can be “seen” also in the
face of your brothers and sisters, especially those who are most
forgotten: the poor, the hungry, those who thirst, strangers, the
sick, those imprisoned. Have you ever had this experience? Dear young
people, in order to enter into the logic of the Kingdom of Heaven, we
must recognise that we are poor with the poor. A pure heart is
necessarily one which has been stripped bare, a heart that knows how
to bend down and share its life with those most in need.
Encountering God in prayer, the reading
of the Bible and in the fraternal life will help you better to know
the Lord and yourselves. Like the disciples on the way to Emmaus, the
Lord’s voice will make your hearts burn within you. He will open
your eyes to recognise his presence and to discover the loving plan
he has for your life.
Some of you feel, or will soon feel,
the Lord’s call to married life, to forming a family. Many people
today think that this vocation is “outdated”, but that is not
true! For this very reason, the ecclesial community has been engaged
in a special period of reflection on the vocation and the mission of
the family in the Church and the contemporary world. I also ask you
to consider whether you are being called to the consecrated life or
the priesthood. How beautiful it is to see young people who embrace
the call to dedicate themselves fully to Christ and to the service of
his Church! Challenge yourselves, and with a pure heart do not be
afraid of what God is asking of you! From your “yes” to the
Lord’s call, you will become new seeds of hope in the Church and in
society. Never forget: God’s will is our happiness!
4. On the way to Krakow
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God”. Dear young men and women, as you see, this
beatitude speaks directly to your lives and is a guarantee of your
happiness. So once more I urge you: Have the courage to be happy!
This year’s World Youth Day begins
the final stage of preparations for the great gathering of young
people from around the world in Krakow in 2016. Thirty years ago St.
John Paul II instituted World Youth Days in the Church. This
pilgrimage of young people from every continent under the guidance of
the Successor of Peter has truly been a providential and prophetic
initiative. Together let us thank the Lord for the precious fruits
which these World Youth Days have produced in the lives of countless
young people in every part of the globe! How many amazing discoveries
have been made, especially the discovery that Christ is the Way, the
Truth and the Life! How many people have realised that the Church is
a big and welcoming family! How many conversions, how many vocations
have these gatherings produced! May the saintly Pope, the Patron of
World Youth Day, intercede on behalf of our pilgrimage toward his
beloved Krakow. And may the maternal gaze of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
full of grace, all-beautiful and all-pure, accompany us at every step
along the way.