cl in the world

John Paul II to Youth

The Hope that Does not Let Us Down
John Paul II’s words to the 600,000 young people gathered to hear him in a field on the edge of Toronto: “The world you are inheriting is a world which needs to be touched and healed by the beauty and richness of God’s love. We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures”

By ANDREA TORNIELLI

“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures. We are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son…” In a world torn apart by hatred and violence, by terrorism and fanaticism; in a world that appears ever more subjected to the Evil One, it took the unshakable faith of a witness, the elderly and frail Pope, to repeat to youth the one true announcement of a hope that does not let us down. Downsview Park, the former airport on the outskirts of Toronto, seemed like an immense refugee camp after the violent storm at dawn that took the more than 600,000 half-asleep young people by surprise. Tents and makeshift shelters, cardboard boxes and plastic sheets, umbrellas and windbreakers were little protection in the park transformed into a swamp.

Against the spirit of the world
Sunday, July 28, at the culmination and conclusion of the XVII World Youth Day, the weather itself seemed to want to conform to John Paul II’s message, shifting from a downpour to unexpected sunshine. When Karol Wojtyla, dressed in his green vestments and more stooped than ever, made his entrance onto the large, colorful podium, the wind and rain were very strong. Even the multicolored miters of the Bishops and Cardinals were bent into the strangest shapes by the dampness. The young people were exhausted but attentive. “On a hillside near the lake of Galilee, Jesus’ disciples listened to his gentle and urgent voice; as gentle as the landscape of Galilee itself, as urgent as a call to choose between life and death, between truth and falsehood.” This is the dramatic choice that John Paul II put to the interlocutors he loves most, the young people who know how to listen to him without prejudice. “Jesus offers one thing,” he explained, “the ‘spirit of the world’ offers another… The ‘spirit of the world’ offers many illusions and parodies of happiness. There is perhaps no darkness deeper than the darkness that enters young people’s souls when false prophets extinguish in them the light of faith and hope and love. The greatest deception, and the deepest source of unhappiness, is the illusion of finding life by excluding God, of finding freedom by excluding moral truths and personal responsibility.”

Moving beauty
This choice was the substance and challenge of World Youth Day. John Paul II added, “The world you are inheriting is a world which desperately needs a new sense of brotherhood and human solidarity. It is a world which needs to be touched and healed by the beauty and richness of God’s love.” “Touched and healed,” were the Pope’s precise words. And we all know that speeches, ideologies, calls to arms, but also strategies, pastoral projects, and appeals to “close ranks” in order to safeguard the cultural identity of Europe, neither touch nor heal the wounds of contemporary man. Only the moving beauty of an encounter, of a face, a gesture, a fact that occurred unexpectedly by grace, truly “touch” the heart. It is something unexpected but real, like the sun that suddenly came out to warm the field. John Paul II knows this, and this is why he reiterated that “today’s world needs witnesses” to God’s love.

He urged the young people in Downsview Park “to preserve and keep alive the awareness of the presence of our Savior Jesus Christ, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist.” This emphasis was especially meaningful in Canada, where frequent abuses are reported precisely in the Eucharistic celebrations. The beauty that touches and heals is a tiny light but, the Holy Father explained, “Even a tiny flame lifts the heavy lid of night. How much more light will you make, all together, if you bond as one in the communion of the Church! If you love Jesus, love the Church!”

The duty of holiness
This is a difficult moment in history as well as inside the Church in the North American countries at the center of accusations of sexual abuse of minors on the part of priests. John Paul II chose to insert this topic into a passage of his homily, saying that these facts fill “all of us with a deep sense of sadness and shame,” but he invited everyone, raising the tone of his voice and marking off his words, to look at the vast majority of priests and religious who spend their lives doing good. “At difficult moments in the Church’s life, the pursuit of holiness becomes even more urgent. And holiness is not a question of age; it is a matter of living in the Holy Spirit.” “You are young,” the Pontiff concluded, “and the Pope is old. But the Pope still fully identifies with your hopes and aspirations. Although I have lived through much darkness, under harsh totalitarian regimes, I have seen enough evidence to be unshakably convinced that no difficulty, no fear is so great that it can completely suffocate the hope that springs eternal in the hearts of the young. Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it! We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures…”

Two scenarios
The evening before, on the same spot, during the vigil, John Paul II had spoken of two contrasting scenarios which ushered in the new millennium: the multitude of pilgrims who came to Rome for the Jubilee, the unceasing flow of men, women, and children who passed through the Holy Door, which the Pope often stopped to watch secretly from his study window; and “the terrible terrorist attack on New York, an image that is a sort of icon of a world in which hostility and hatred seem to prevail.” And he urged young people to build the edifice of their existence on the “cornerstone” that is Jesus: “Only Christ–known, contemplated and loved–is the faithful friend who never lets us down, who becomes our traveling companion, and whose words warm our hearts.”