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VMY with the Pope

The Pope of the Youth

The VMY has a special friend: The Pope

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The Pope of the Youth

Karol Jozef Wojtyla, known as John Paul II since his election as Pope on October 1978, was born in Wadowice, a small city 50 kms. from Krakow, on May 18, 1920.  

"Have no fear,” were the first words that His Excellency John Paul II addressed to the entire world from St. Peter’s Square on October 22, 1978. 

From 1985, the Church has seen the surging of the World Youth Day celebrations. Its genesis – recalls the Holy Father – was the Jubilee Year of the Redemption and the International Year of the Youth, convoked by the United Nations Organization that same year.

The young people were invited to Rome. And that was the beginning… After the liturgy on the inauguration day of the pontiff that October 22 he told the young people in St. Peter’s Square, “You are the hope of the Church and of the world. You are my hope.”

During the World Youth Day in Toronto, where young people from five continents participated, he addressed them with the following words, “You are young and the Pope is old and yet he identifies with your dreams and your hopes,” demonstrating the place where the young people occupy in the heart of the Holy Father. “You are my hope…” are words that he constantly repeats to them. 

His words to the young people are always of love, hope, commitment, the whole thing anchored in the proclamation of the Gospel, knowing the Pope and the secularized world where many young people live at present.  The Pope loves the young people and they do as well the Holy Father. He knows the responsibility that the Church has to the youth, “The Church can not forget the task of staying with and accompany the youth, right at the very time of its existence…  I believe in the youth. I believe in the youth with all my heart and with all the power of my conviction.”

In the letter that he wrote in 1985 to the young people on the occasion of the Year of the Youth, he quoted, “Always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15) Encouraging the young people to courageously give witness of their faith and what they are meant to be he said, “Invigorate your faith. Revive it if it has become weak. Open the doors for Christ! Open your hearts to Christ! Welcome him as a companion and guide of your way!” We have to know Christ so that we can later become witnesses to the world where being a Christian is out of fashion. We have to become authentic and profound witnesses.

The Pope has always been beside the neediest young people and this he made us see in the 4th WYD in Santiago de Compostela (Spain,) saying that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. There was an encounter then for sick young people in Santiago. It was one that was filled with warmth and tenderness. The Holy Father himself has experienced pain in the “first person,” this 84 year old young person, as defined in his encounter with the Spanish youth on May 2004.

The Pope always asks the youth to become holy. He proclaimed that during the WYD 2000 in Rome saying that this is the challenge for this millennium that has already begun. He also invites us to take Mary as John the Beloved did on the cross, so that She may help us encounter Christ and follow Him. But this will not be possible with our efforts alone. We need the Eucharist to mold our lives.

The Pope has always reiterated with conviction that the young people are the hope of the world:

"It is not true that the Pope is the one who will be leading the young people from one pole of the globe to the other. It is they who leads him. And, although his age increases, they encourage him to be young, and not forget his experience, his discovery of the youth and the great importance that it has in the life of every man."