(ANS – Rome) – World Youth Day is an annual event: at international level every two or three years and at diocesan level in the intervening years on Palm Sunday. Benedict XVI has given young people in the dioceses throughout the world his message for the XXVII WYD, which inevitably recalls that held in Madrid last August and looks forward to the next one in Rio de Janeiro. Fr Fabio Attard, Councillor for Youth Ministry takes us through the message.

This message of the Pope for WYD 2012 starts from the invitation to rejoice found in the Letter of St Paul to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always”!” (4,4). The Pope offers a simple reflection beginning in the hearts of the young – a heart made for joy; he proposes Christ as its source; and invites them to see life as the place for joy.

1. The first challenge is to know how to respond to the question “where is the source of joy?”
The Pope begins with Jesus because he shows fully the joy that God has for everything that lives. It is in meeting Jesus that  leads to a great inner joy. We find this in Jesus’ ministry, and also in that crucial moment at the hour of his passion when at the end of his earthly life at supper with his friends he says: ““As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love... I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete” (Jn 15:9,11). Jesus wants to lead his disciples and each one of us into the fullness of joy that he shares with the Father, so that the Father’s love for him might abide in us (cf. Jn 17:26). The same joy-filled experience is reported in the Gospels on the day of the Resurrection: “Peace be with you!” (Mt 28,8-9). It is the joy of Christ, the  living one, the victor over evil, sin and death.

2. If Christ is the source  our life is to be lived in joy. He then turns to the question: “How to preserve Christian joy in the heart?”
He gives a simple answer: “Dear young people, do not be afraid to risk your lives by making space for Jesus Christ and his Gospel.”

This goes hand in hand with a life of faith: “joy is the fruit of faith. It is being aware of his presence and friendship every day: “the Lord is near!” This is the way based on faith enlightened by the Word, nourished by the liturgy,  by the celebration of the eucharistic, the  sacrament of penance  and finally by a commitment to “allowing fraternal love to grow in your lives and in those of your communities.” Three elements that lead to the joy of love.

3. The  Pope then refers to the approaching “Year of faith” which will be a help and encouragement. At the same time he speaks about two young people, Pier Giorgio Frassati and Chiara Badano who lived that joy to the full. The first wrote: ““You ask me if I am happy. How could I not be? As long as faith gives me strength, I am happy. A Catholic could not be other than happy... The goal for which we were created involves a path which has its thorns, but it is not a sad path. It is joy, even when it involves pain” (Letter to his sister Luciana, Turin, 14 February 1925). While Chiara declared: “It was really a moment of God’s presence. I was suffering physically, but my soul was singing” (Letter to Chiara Lubich, Sassello, 20 December 1989).

4. Finally, the Pope urges young people to be missionaries of joy. Someone following Christ cannot be happy if others are not. Joy has to be shared. A joy that come from the faith conviction that we are never alone, that God is always holding us in his hands!

Two other quotations worth quoting which the Pope mentions: one from Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta: ““Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls; God loves a cheerful giver. Whoever gives with joy gives more”.” The second is from the Servant of God Paul VI: “In God himself, all is joy because all is giving.”

Published 30/03/2012