Vatican City, 17 February 2016 (VIS) –
At 4 p.m. local time (11 p.m. in Rome), Francis arrived at the Jose
Maria Morelos y Pavon stadium in the city of Morelia, where he was
awaited by around fifty thousand young people. The festive encounter
was filled with songs, dance and testimonies from Daniela, Alberto,
Roberto and Rosario, all young people who told the Pope about the
realities of their lives. The problems of work, the difficulties
faced by families and the need for hope were the key themes. "Today
the young people of Mexico see in you the face of the hope we need".
"I already knew your concerns
because I was given a draft copy of what you might say", said
the Pope; "I have to be honest, why tell you a lie! But as you
were speaking I also took some notes of the things which seemed more
important so that they would not be left hanging in the air. I have
to tell you that when I arrived in this country I received a warm
welcome and I saw something that I knew for a long time: the
vitality, the joy, and the festive spirit of the Mexican people. And
now after listening to you, but particularly after seeing you, I am
also certain about something else, something I said to the President
of the nation when I arrived. One of Mexico’s greatest treasures is
that it has a youthful face: its young people. Yes, you are the
wealth of this land. Careful though! I did not say the hope of this
land, but its wealth".
"The mountain may have rich
minerals to serve humanity’s advancement, in terms of its wealth,
but that richness has to be converted into hope by hard work, just as
miners do when they extract those minerals. You are this wealth, and
it has to be converted into hope. And Daniela concluded by offering
us a challenge, as well as giving us some guidance about hope. But
all who spoke about their difficulties and their experiences
expressed a great truth: 'all of us can live but we cannot live
without hope'. You cannot look to the future if you do not first know
how to value yourselves, if you do not feel that your life, your
hands, your history, is worth the effort".
"It is about feeling what Alberto
described: 'with my hands, with my heart and my mind I can build up
hope; if I do not perceive that hope, then it cannot enter my heart'.
Hope is born when you are able to experience that all is not lost;
and for this to happen it is necessary to start 'at home', to begin
with yourself. Not everything is lost. I am not lost; I am worth
something, I am worth a lot. I ask you for some silence now, and I
ask each one of you to ask himself or herself: 'Is it true that not
everything is lost?' 'Am I lost?' 'Do I have worth?' 'Am I worth a
little, a lot?'. The biggest threats to hope are those words which
devalue you, words which suck out your value and you end up feeling
down, is this not so? Words which make you feel second rate, even
fourth rate. The biggest threat to hope is when you feel that you do
not matter to anybody or that that you have been left aside. This is
the great obstacle to hope: when, in a family, society, school or a
group of friends, you are made to feel unimportant to them. This is
hard and painful, but it does happen, am I right? Yes or no? [They
reply 'Yes']. Yes, it happens. This kills, this crushes us and opens
the door to much suffering".
"But there is also another
principal threat to the hope that your richness will grow and bear
fruit, and it is this: to allow yourself to believe that you begin to
be valuable when you start wearing the right clothes, the latest
brands and fashions, or when you start enjoying prestige and
importance because you have money; but in the depths of your heart
you do not believe that you are worthy of kindness or love and this
is something which your heart intuits. Hope is silenced by what they
make you believe, and they don’t let you flourish. The biggest
threat is when a person feels that they must have money to buy
everything, including the love of others. The biggest threat is to
believe that by having a big car you will be happy. Is this true,
that by having a big car you will be happy?" [They reply: 'No'].
"You are the wealth of Mexico, you
are the wealth of the Church. Allow me to tell you a phrase from my
country: 'I am not massaging your back'; 'I am not flattering you'. I
understand that often it is difficult to feel your value when you are
continually exposed to the loss of friends or relatives at the hands
of the drug trade, of drugs themselves, of criminal organizations
that sow terror. It is hard to feel the wealth of a nation when there
are no opportunities for dignified work – Alberto you expressed
this clearly – no possibilities for study or advancement, when you
feel your rights are not recognised, which then leads you to extreme
situations. It is difficult to appreciate the value of a place when,
because of your youth, you are used for selfish purposes, seduced by
promises that end up being untrue. They are like soap bubbles. And it
is difficult to feel valuable in these cases. You bear your value
inside and your hope too; but it is not easy, due to the things I am
telling you and to the things you have told us: there is a lack of
work and study opportunities, as Roberto and Alberto said".
"Nonetheless, despite all this, I
will never tire of saying, You are the wealth of Mexico. Roberto,
you used a phrase which I may have overlooked when I read the draft,
but it’s something I want to come back to. You spoke about losing
something and yet you did not say: 'I lost my cell phone, I lost my
wallet with money in it'. We have lost the wonder of walking
together, we have lost the delight of dreaming together, so that this
wealth, moved by hope, can take us forward; we need to walk together,
we need to meet, and we need to dream. Do not lose the fascinating
power of dreaming! Have the courage to dream! To dream, which is not
the same as being sleepyheads, right?"
"And don’t think I am saying
this – that you are the wealth of Mexico and that this richness
goes forward when it is full of hope – because I am good, or I
because I have clear ideas about it; no dear friends, it is not like
that. I say this to you and I am convinced of it. And do you know
why? Because, like you, I believe in Jesus Christ. And I think
Daniela was very brave when she spoke to us about this. I believe in
Jesus Christ and that is why I tell you this. It is He Who
continually renews in me this hope, it is He Who continually renews
my outlook. It is He Who awakens in me, in each one of us, the wonder
of enjoying, the charm of dreaming, the delight of working together.
It is He Who continually invites me to a conversion of heart. Yes, my
friends, I say this because in Jesus I have found the one who is able
to bring out the best in me. Hand in hand with Him, we can move
forward, hand in hand with Him we can begin again and again, hand in
hand with Him we can say: it is a lie to believe that the only way to
live, or to be young, is to entrust oneself to drug dealers or others
who do nothing but sow destruction and death. This is a lie and we
say it holding on to Jesus’ hand. It is also hand in hand with
Jesus Christ, with the Lord, that we can say: it is a lie that the
only way to live as young people here is in poverty and exclusion; in
the exclusion of opportunities, in the exclusion of spaces, in the
exclusion of training and education, in the exclusion of hope. It is
Jesus Christ Who refutes all attempts to render you useless or to be
mere mercenaries of other people’s ambitions. They are ambitions
which exclude you, to use you in the areas I mentioned, which you
know well, and which end up destroying. And the only one that can
grab me firmly by the hand is Jesus Christ; He can convert this
wealth into hope".
"You have asked me for a word of
hope, and the one word I have to give you, which is the foundation of
everything, is Jesus Christ. When everything seems too much, when it
seems that the world is crashing down on you, embrace His Cross, draw
close to Him and please, never let go of His hand, even if they are
dragging you; and, if you should fall, allow Him to lift you up.
Mountain climbers have a lovely song which I like to repeat to young
people. As they go up the mountain they sing: 'In the art of climbing
upwards, the triumph is not in not falling but rather in not staying
down on the ground'. This is the art, and, who is the only one who
can take you by the hand so that you are not left lying on the
ground? Jesus Christ is the only one. Jesus Christ, Who sometimes
sends a brother or sister to speak to you or help you. Don’t hide
your hand when you have fallen, do not say to him: 'Don’t look at
me, I am covered in mud. Don’t look at me, I am without hope'. You
have only to let him grab your hand and you his, and then that
richness which is inside you, which is covered in mud, and which you
have given up on, will begin, through hope, to bear fruit. But always
holding onto Jesus’ hand".
"This is the way, do not forget:
'In the art of climbing upwards, the triumph is not in not falling
but rather in not staying down on the ground'. Never allow yourselves
to stay down, fallen on the ground! Never! Agreed? And if you see a
friend who slipped up in life and has fallen, go and offer him or her
your hand, but do so with dignity. Put yourself on their level,
listen to them and don’t say: 'I have the solution for you'. No, as
a friend, slowly give them strength by your words, give them strength
by your listening, that medicine which sadly is being forgotten: 'the
therapy of listening'. Let them speak, let them share their
experience, and then little by little, they will offer you their
hand, and, in the name of Jesus Christ, you can help them. 'But if
you go in suddenly and begin to give them a sermon, going on about
the same thing, well then, he or she will be worse off than before.
Am I clear? [They reply: 'Yes']. Never let go of Jesus’ hand, never
leave him; and if you do move away from him, get up and keep moving
forwards, He understands what you are going through. Hand in hand
with Jesus it is possible to live fully, by holding his hand it is
possible to believe that life is worth the effort, it is worth giving
of your best, to be leaven, salt and light among friends, in
neighbourhoods, communities, and families".
"For this reason, dear friends,
holding the hand of Jesus I ask you to not let yourselves be
excluded, do not allow yourselves to be devalued, do not let them
treat you like a commodity. For this Jesus have us good advice, so
that we would not be left excluded, left without value, treated as a
commodity: 'Be astute as serpents but humble as doves'. These two
virtues go together. Young people do not lack a lively mind but they
do sometimes lack that astuteness which would prevent them from being
naive. The two things: astuteness but with simplicity and goodness.
Of course, on this journey you may perhaps not be able to have the
latest car model at the door, you will not have pockets filled with
money, but you will have something that no one can take away from
you, which is the experience of being loved, embraced and
accompanied. It is the delight of enjoying an encounter, the delight
of dreaming and desiring encounter among everyone. It is the
experience of being family, of feeling oneself as part of a
community. It is the experience of being able to look at the world in
the face, with your head held up high, without the car, without the
money, but with your head held high: this is dignity. Three words we
want to repeat: value, because you have been made valuable; hope,
because we want to be open to hope; and dignity. Let us repeat these
three words: value, hope and dignity. It is the value, the worth that
God has given you. You are the wealth of Mexico. The hope and dignity
which Jesus Christ gives you means not allowing 'your backs to be
massaged' and not allowing yourselves to be used as commodities to
fill the pockets of other people".
"Today the Lord continues to call
you, he continues to draw you to him, just as he did with the Indian,
Juan Diego. He invites you to build a shrine. A shrine that is not a
physical place but rather a community, a shrine called 'Parish', a
shrine called, 'Nation'. Being a community, a family, and knowing
that we are citizens is one of the best antidotes to all that
threatens us, because it makes us feel that we are a part of the
great family of God. This is not an invitation to flee and enclose
ourselves, to escape from the threats that exist in life or to escape
from challenges, but, on the contrary, it is an invitation to go out
and to invite others, to go out and proclaim to others that being
young in Mexico is the greatest wealth, and consequently, it cannot
be sacrificed. For this great value of ours is capable of hope and it
gives us dignity. Again these three words: value, hope and dignity.
But it is a value, a richness, which God has given us and which we
have to make grow".
"Jesus, who gives us hope, would
never ask us to be assassins; rather, he calls us disciples, he calls
us friends. Jesus would never send us out to death, but rather
everything in him speaks of life. A life in a family, life in a
community; families and communities for the good of society. And
here, Rosario, I refer to what you said, something really beautiful:
'In the family we learn closeness'. In the family we learn
solidarity, how to share, to discern, to walk ahead with each other’s
problems, to fight and to make up, to argue and to embrace and to
kiss. The family is the first school of the nation, and in the family
you will find that richness and value that you have. The family is
like the custodian of that great value, in the family you will find
hope, for Jesus is there, and in the family you will have dignity.
Never, never put the family to one side; the family is the founding
stone upon which a great nation is built. You are so valuable, you
have hope and you dream – Rosario also spoke of dreaming – 'Do
you dream of having a family?' They reply: 'Yes']".
"Dear brothers and sisters, you
are the wealth of this country, and when you doubt this, look to
Jesus Christ, who is the hope, he who destroys all efforts to make
you useless or mere instruments of other people’s ambitions. I
thank you for this meeting and I ask you to pray for me. Thank you".
The Pope then proceeded to Morelia
heliport to transfer to the airport for his return flight to Mexico
City. He travelled directly from the airport to the apostolic
nunciature, where he arrived at 7.40 p.m. local time (2.40 a.m. in
Rome).
Today at 7.30 local time (2.30 p.m. in
Rome) the Holy Father travelled by air to Ciudad Juarez, the final
leg of his apostolic trip in Mexico. There he will first visit the
"Centro de Readaptacion Social Estatal No.3" penitentiary
where he will meet with detainees and their families. He will then
meet with representatives of the world of work at the Colegio de
Bachilleres of the State of Chihuahua. Three hours after lunch in the
Ciudad Juarez archdiocesan seminary at 1.15 p.m. local time (9.15
p.m. in Rome), he will celebrate Mass close to the border between
Mexico and the United States. Finally, he will transfer directly to
the airport where at 7.15 p.m. local time (3.15 a.m. in Rome) he will
depart for Italy. The aircraft carrying the Pope is expected to land
in Rome at 3.15 p.m. tomorrow.
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