World Youth Day in Rome, Jubilee Year 2000
Pope St. John Paul II’s Closing Address for World Youth Day, 2000
“In today’s Eucharistic celebration, Jesus… reveals himself
as the true bread of life, the bread which has come down from heaven to give
life to the world (cf. Jn 6:51)…This is the stupendous truth, dear friends: the
Word, who took flesh two thousand years ago, is present today in the
Eucharist…The Eucharist is the sacrament of the presence of Christ, who gives
himself to us because he loves us. He loves each one of us in a unique and
personal way… when he fills our days with freshness, and also when, in times of
suffering, he allows trials to weigh upon us: even in the most severe trials,
he lets us hear his voice.
Yes, dear friends, Christ loves us and he loves us forever!
He loves us even when we disappoint him, when we fail to meet his expectations
for us. He never fails to embrace us in his mercy. How can we not be grateful
to this God who has redeemed us, going so far as to accept the foolishness of
the Cross? To God who has come to be at our side and has stayed with us to the
end?
To celebrate the Eucharist, “to eat his flesh and drink his
blood”, means to accept the wisdom of the Cross... It means that we signal our
willingness to sacrifice ourselves for others, as Christ has done.
Our society desperately needs this sign, and young people
need it even more so, tempted as they often are by the illusion of an easy and
comfortable life, by drugs and pleasure-seeking, only to find themselves in a
spiral of despair, meaninglessness and violence. It is urgent to change
direction and to turn to Christ. This is the way to… a future worthy of the
human person.
Dear friends, when you go back home, set the Eucharist at
the centre of your… life: love the Eucharist, adore the Eucharist and celebrate
it... Live the Eucharist by testifying to God’s love for every person.
I entrust to you, dear friends, this greatest of God’s gifts
to us who are pilgrims on the paths of time, but who bear in our hearts a
thirst for eternity.”
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