Tor Vergata, Saturday, August 19, 2000
1. "Who do you say I am?" (Mt 16, 15).
Dear young people, with great joy I meet you again at this prayer vigil, during which we wish to listen together in Christ, we hear this from us. And 'he who speaks to us.
"Who do you say I am?". Jesus asks this question to his disciples, near Caesarea Philippi. Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt 16, 16). In turn, the Master addresses the surprising words: "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed, but my Father in heaven" (Mt 16, 17).
What is the meaning of this dialogue? Why did Jesus want to hear what people think about him? Why does he want to know what to think about him and his disciples?
Jesus wants his disciples to become aware of what which is hidden in their minds and their hearts and expressing their belief. At the same time, however, he knows that the proceedings that will manifest not only them, because it will reveal what God has poured into their hearts with the grace of faith. This event
near Caesarea Philippi leads us in a sense the "school of faith." There is revealed the mystery of the beginning and the maturing of faith. First there is the grace of revelation: an intimate, ineffable self-giving of God to man. Then comes the call to be answered. Finally, there is the human response, a response that from now on must give meaning and shape to his life.
Here What is faith! It 's the response of the rational and free to the word of the living God. The questions that Jesus asks, the answers given by the Apostles, and finally by Simon Peter, are a kind of examination of the maturity of faith of those who are closer to Christ.
2. The conversation at Caesarea Philippi took place in the period before Easter, before the passion and resurrection of Christ. We should also recall another event, during which the Risen Christ, checked the maturity of the faith of his Apostles. This is the meeting with the Apostle Thomas. It was the only one there when, after the resurrection, Christ came for the first time in the Upper Room. When others disciples said to have seen the Lord, he would not believe. He said: "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger in the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I do not believe" (Jn 20, 25). After eight days the disciples were gathered together again and Thomas was with them. Jesus came through the closed door, and greeted the Apostles with the words: "Peace be with you!" (Jn 20, 26) and then immediately turned to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands, put out your hand and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing!" (Jn 20, 27). Thomas then replied: "My Lord and my God!" (Jn 20, 28).
The Upper Room in Jerusalem for the Apostles was a sort of "school of faith." However, as there was with Thomas goes, in a sense, than what happened near Caesarea Philippi. In the Upper Room we are dealing with a dialectic of faith and unbelief, more radical and at the same time, faced with an even deeper confession of the truth about Christ. It was not really easy to believe that He was alive again they had placed in the tomb three days earlier.
The Divine Master had often announced that he would rise from the dead several times and had given evidence to be the Lord of life. Yet the experience of his death was so overwhelming that they needed a direct meeting with him, to believe in his resurrection: the Apostles at the Last Supper, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the holy women beside the grave ... It also needed Thomas. But when his disbelief, he met with the direct experience of the presence of Christ, the doubting Apostle spoke the words which express the deepest core of faith: If so, if you are truly alive despite having been killed, it means say you're "My Lord and my God."
what happened to Thomas, the "school of faith" has been enriched by a new item. Divine revelation, the question of Christ and man's response has been completed in a personal encounter with Christ's disciple living with the Risen One. Encounter is the beginning of a new relationship between man and Christ, a relationship in which human beings recognize that Christ is Lord and God, not only the Lord God and the world and humanity, but the Lord and God of my own individual human existence. One day St. Paul writes: "The word is near you, on your lips and in thy heart: that is the word of faith which we preach. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved "(Rom 10, 8-9).
3. The readings of Liturgy describe the elements that make up the "school of faith" from which the Apostles emerged as people fully aware of the truth that God revealed in Jesus Christ, a truth that would shape their personal lives and that of the Church throughout history. Today's meeting in Rome, dear young people, is also a kind of "school of faith" for you, the disciples of today, for all who proclaim Christ at the beginning of the third millennium.
Each of you can find himself in the process of questions and answers that we have noted above. You can all believe in their difficulties, and even feel the temptation. At the same time, however, can also experience a gradual maturing sense and conviction of your commitment of faith. Very often, in this wonderful school of the human spirit, the school of faith, a meeting between God and man. The Risen Christ always entered the upper room of our lives and allows everyone to experience his presence and to declare: You, O Christ, are "my Lord and my God."
Christ said to Thomas: "Because you have seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe" (Jn 20, 29). Every human being has within him something of the Apostle Thomas. E 'tempted by and poses fundamental questions: It' s true that God exists? It 's true that the world was created by Him? It 's true that the Son of God became man, died and rose again? The answer comes with the experience that makes the person's presence. To open our eyes and hearts in the light of the Holy Spirit. Then speak to each open wounds of the Risen Christ: "Because you have seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."
4. Dear friends, today believe in Jesus, follow Jesus' footsteps of Peter, Thomas, and the early apostles and witnesses, that we take a stand for him and often almost a new martyrdom: the martyrdom of those who, today as yesterday, are called to go against the current to follow the divine Master, to follow the Lamb wherever he goes "(Rev 14:4). Not by chance, dear young people, I wanted to be remembered during the Holy Year at the Colosseum witnesses of the twentieth century.
Maybe you will not be asked for blood, but fidelity to Christ will certainly yes! A faith to live in situations of every day I think about boyfriends and the difficulty of living within the world of today, the purity before marriage. I think young couples and the evidence which has exposed their commitment to mutual fidelity. I think of friendships and the temptation to be disloyal slip between them.
I think even those who have chosen the path of special consecration to the effort must continue to deal with sometimes devoted to God and to others. I think of those who want to live a life of solidarity and love in a world where it seems to apply only to the logic of profit and self-interest or group.
I think too of those who work for peace and saw the birth and develop in various parts of the world, new outbreaks of war and I think those who work for the freedom of man and sees him still a slave of himself and of others who think struggle to love and respect for human life and must be witnessed frequent attacks against it, against the respect due to it.
5. Dear young people, it is difficult to believe in a world like that? In the Third Millennium is hard to believe? Yes! It 'difficult. There is no need to hide it. E ' difficult, but with the help of grace it can, as Jesus said to Peter, "Flesh and blood has not revealed, but my Father in heaven" (Mt 16:17).
This evening I will give the Gospel. It 's the gift that the Pope leaves you in this unforgettable vigil. The words contained in it is the word of Jesus If you listen in silence, in prayer, seeking help in understanding your life by the wise counsel of your priests and teachers, then you will meet Christ and follow him, spending day after day life for him!
In fact, it is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness: he is waiting for you when nothing you are satisfied with what they found, he is the beauty that 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 that others try to stifle. And 'Jesus who stirs in you the desire to make something great of your life, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to let down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making more human and fraternal world.
Dear young people, these noble tasks are not alone. With you there are your families, your communities are, we are your priests and educators, there are many of you who do not get tired of hiding in the love of Christ and believe in Him in the fight against sin are not alone: \u200b\u200bas many as you struggle and with the grace of God wins!
6. Dear friends, I see in you the "morning watchmen" (cf. Is 21:11-12) at the third millennium. During the century that young people like you were summoned to huge gatherings to learn to hate, were sent to fight against each other. The various secular messianism, which attempted to replace the Christian hope, but later proved true hell. Today you have come to declare that in new century you will not be made into tools of violence and destruction, defend peace, paying in person if necessary. You will not resign in a world where other human beings die of hunger, remain illiterate and have no work. You will defend life at every moment of its development, we strive with all your strength to make this earth more livable for all.
Dear young people of the century now beginning, saying "yes" to Christ, you say 'yes' to all your noblest ideals. I pray that he will rule in your hearts and humanity of the new century and millennium. Do not be afraid to rely on Him He will guide you, give you the strength to follow each day and in every situation.
Mary, the Virgin who said "yes" to God throughout his life, the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and all the saints through the centuries that marked the Church's progress, keep you always in this holy purpose!
A one and all with affection I offer my blessing.
the end of his speech to young people, John Paul II continued:
I conclude my speech, my message, telling you that I waited so long to meet you, see, the first night and then in the day. Thank you for this dialogue, punctuated with shouts and applause. Thanks for this dialogue. By virtue of your initiative, your intelligence, it was not a monologue, it was a real dialogue.
After Mass, the Pope greeted the young with these words:
There's a Polish proverb that says: "Kto zkim przestaje, takim staje you." It means if you live with young people, you'll have too young. So back rejuvenated. And once again I greet you all, especially those that are further back in the shadows, and do not see anything. But if they could not see, certainly could hear this "noise". This "noise" hit Rome and Rome will never forget it!
