MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
FOR THE XXXIX WORLD YOUTH DAY
24 November 2024
Those who hope in the Lord will run and not be
weary (cf. Is 40:31)
Dear young people!
Last year we set out on the path of hope towards
the Great Jubilee by reflecting on Saint Paul’s
words, “Rejoice in hope” (Rom 12:12).
In order to prepare ourselves for the
Jubilee pilgrimage of 2025, this year we can
take inspiration from the prophet Isaiah, who
says: “Those who hope in the Lord… will run and
not be weary” (Is 40:31). These words are taken
from the so-called Book of Consolation (Is
40-55), which heralds the end of Israel’s exile
in Babylon and the beginning of a new age of
hope and rebirth for God’s people, who can
return to their homeland thanks to a new
“highway” that the Lord is presently opening up
for his children (cf. Is 40:3).
Today, we too live in times marked by dramatic
situations that generate despair and prevent us
from looking to the future with serenity: the
tragedy of war, social injustices, inequalities,
hunger and the exploitation of human beings and
the natural environment. Often the ones who pay
the highest price are precisely young people.
You sense the uncertainty of the future and are
not sure about where your dreams will lead. In
this way, you can be tempted to live without
hope, as prisoners of boredom, depression and
even be drawn to risk-taking and destructive
behaviours (cf. Spes Non Confundit, 12). For
this reason, dear young people, I would like the
message of hope to come to you, as was the case
with Israel in Babylon. Today too, the Lord is
opening a highway before you, and he invites you
to set out on it with joy and hope.
1. The pilgrimage of life and its challenges
The prophet Isaiah speaks of “walking without
tiring”. Let us reflect then on these two
realities: walking and tiredness.
Our life is a pilgrimage, a journey that pushes
us beyond ourselves, a journey in search of
happiness. The Christian life in particular is a
pilgrimage towards God, our salvation and the
fullness of every good thing.
Our goals, achievements and successes
along the way, if they remain only material,
will, after an initial moment of satisfaction,
still leave us hungry, longing for something
greater. They cannot completely satisfy our
soul, because we were created by One who is
infinite; as a result, we have an innate desire
for transcendence, a constant restless drive
towards the fulfilment of higher aspirations,
towards “even more”. That is why, as I have
often said to you, “looking at life from a
balcony” is not enough for you young people.
Still, it is normal that, while we set out on
our journeys with enthusiasm, sooner or later we
will begin to feel tired. In some cases, anxiety
and inner fatigue are brought on by social
pressures, the need to attain certain levels of
success in our studies, our work and our
personal life. This produces a certain
despondency, as we live running from one thing
to another in an empty “activism” that makes us
fill our days with a thousand things and, in
spite of this, feel that we never manage to do
enough and never quite measure up. This
tiredness is often accompanied by a certain
ennui, the apathy and dissatisfaction that
affects those who never set out, choose, decide,
take risks, preferring to remain in their own
comfort zone, closed in on themselves, seeing
and judging the world from a distance, without
ever “dirtying their hands” with problems, with
other people, with life itself. This kind of
tiredness is a kind of wet cement in which we
stand; eventually it hardens, weighs us down,
paralyzes us and prevents us from moving
forward. I prefer the tiredness of those who are
moving forward, not the ennui of those who stand
still with no desire to move!
The solution to tiredness, oddly enough, is not
to stand still and rest. It is to set out and
become pilgrims of hope. This is my invitation
to you: walk in hope!
Hope overcomes all weariness, every
crisis and every worry. It gives us a powerful
incentive to press forward, for it is a gift
received from God himself. The Lord fills our
life with meaning, sheds light on our path and
shows us its ultimate direction and goal. The
Apostle Paul uses the image of an athlete in the
stadium racing to receive the prize of victory
(cf. 1 Cor 9:24). Those of you who have taken
part in a sports competition – not just as
spectators but as athletes – know how much inner
strength it takes to reach the finish line. Hope
is precisely a new kind of strength that God
instils in us, enabling us to persevere in the
race, to see beyond present difficulties and to
press forward to the goal of communion with him
and the fullness of eternal life. If a beautiful
goal exists, if life has an ultimate meaning, if
nothing of what I dream, plan and accomplish
will ever be lost, then it is worth the effort
to keep walking, exerting ourselves, overcoming
obstacles and fatigue, because the ultimate
prize is magnificent beyond measure!
2. Pilgrims in the desert
In the pilgrimage of life, there will inevitably
be challenges to face. In earlier times, long
pilgrimages involved coping with changing
seasons and climates, crossing pleasant meadows
and cool forests, but also snow-capped mountains
and parched deserts. Even for those who are
believers, the pilgrimage of life and the
journey to our ultimate goal can prove tiring,
as the journey through the desert to the
Promised Land was for the people of Israel.
And for all of you! Those who have received the
gift of faith know happy moments when we can
feel God’s presence and closeness, but other
moments too, when we experience the desert. It
can happen that our initial enthusiasm for
school or work, or for following Christ –
whether in marriage, the priesthood or
consecrated life – can be followed by moments of
crisis, that make life seem like a difficult
trek in the desert.
Those times of crisis, however, are not
wasted or useless: they can become important
times of growth. They are moments when hope is
purified! In crises, many false “hopes”, hopes
too small for our heart, fade into significance;
they are revealed for what they are and we find
ourselves alone in facing the fundamental
questions of life, with no illusions. And in
those times, each of us can ask: what are the
hopes on which I have based my life? Are they
real hopes or simply mirages?
At those times, the Lord does not abandon us.
Like a father, he draws near to us and
constantly gives us the bread that renews our
strength for the journey. Let us remember that
to the people in the desert he gave manna (cf.
Ex 16) and to the prophet Elijah, weary and
discouraged, he twice offered bread and water,
so that he could walk for “forty days and forty
nights to Horeb, the mountain of God” (cf. 1
Kings 19:3-8). In those biblical stories, the
faith of the Church has seen prefigured the
precious gift of the Eucharist, the true manna,
the true food for the journey, that God gives us
to sustain us on our way. As Blessed Carlo
Acutis said, the Eucharist is the highway to
heaven. Carlo made the Eucharist his most
important daily appointment! In this way, in
union with the Lord, we can walk without tiring,
for he is walking alongside us (cf. Mt 28:20). I
encourage all of you to rediscover the great
gift of the Eucharist!
In those inevitable moments of fatigue in our
pilgrimage in this world, let us learn, then, to
rest like Jesus and in Jesus. He told his
disciples to rest after they returned from their
mission (cf. Mk 6:31); he also recognizes your
own need for bodily rest, time for recreation,
for enjoying the company of friends, for sports
and for sleep. Yet there is a deeper kind of
rest, the repose of the soul, which many seek
and few find, for it is to be found in Christ
alone. Realize that all your inner weariness can
find repose in the Lord, who says to you: “Come
to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy
burdens, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).
When the weariness of the journey weighs you
down, come back to Jesus, learn to rest in him
and abide with him, for “those who hope in the
Lord... will run and not be weary” (Is 40:31).
3. From tourists to pilgrims
Dear young people, I am inviting you to set out
on a journey, to discover life along the path of
love, and to seek the face of God.
My advice to you is this: do not set out
as mere tourists, but as true pilgrims. Do not
be like superficial sightseers, blind to the
beauty around you, never discovering the meaning
of the roads you take, interested only in a few
fleeting moments to capture in a selfie.
Tourists do this. Pilgrims, on the other
hand, immerse themselves fully in the places
they encounter, listen to the message they
communicate, and make them a part of their quest
for happiness and fulfilment. The Jubilee
pilgrimage is meant to be the outward sign of an
inward journey that all of us are called to make
towards our final destination.
With these attitudes, let us all prepare for the
Jubilee Year. I trust that many of you will be
able to come to Rome on pilgrimage to pass
through the Holy Doors.
In any case, everyone will be able to
make this pilgrimage in his or her local Church,
by visiting its churches and shrines that
preserve the faith and devotion of God’s holy
and faithful people. It is my hope that this
Jubilee pilgrimage will become for each of us “a
moment of genuine, personal encounter with the
Lord Jesus, the ‘Door’ of our salvation’” (Spes
Non Confundit, 1).
I encourage you to approach this
experience with three fundamental attitudes.
First, thanksgiving, with hearts open to praise
God for his many gifts, especially the gift of
life. Then, a spirit of seeking, as an
expression of our heart’s unquenchable thirst to
encounter the Lord.
And finally, penance, which helps us to
look within, to acknowledge the wrong paths and
decisions we have at times taken and, in this
way, to be converted to the Lord and to the
light of his Gospel.
4. Pilgrims of hope for the mission
Allow me to leave you with one more evocative
image to guide your journey. Those who visit
Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome cross the great
square surrounded by the colonnade built by the
celebrated architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo
Bernini. The entire colonnade appears as two
open arms, an image of the Church, our mother,
who embraces all her children.
In this coming Holy Year of Hope, I
invite all of you to experience the embrace of
our merciful God, to experience his pardon and
the forgiveness of all our “interior debts”, as
in the biblical tradition of the jubilee years.
In this way, embraced by God and born again in
him, you too can become open arms to embrace
your many friends and peers who need to feel,
through your welcome, the love of God the
Father. May each of you give even just “a smile,
a warm gesture of friendship, a kind look, a
ready ear, a good deed, in the knowledge that,
in the Spirit of Jesus, these can become, for
those who receive them, rich seeds of hope”
(ibid., 18), and thus become tireless
missionaries of joy.
As we press forward, let us lift our gaze, in
faith, to the saints who have gone before us on
the journey, who have reached the goal and now
encourage us by their testimony: “I have fought
the good fight, I have finished the race, I have
kept the faith. From now on, there is reserved
for me the crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that
day; and not only to me, but also to all those
who have longed for his appearing” (2 Tim
4:7-8). The example of so many saints, men and
women, impels and sustains us.
Courage! All of you have a special place in my
heart. I entrust your journey to the Virgin
Mary, so that, following her example, you may be
able to look forward with patience and
confidence to the fulfilment of all your hopes,
even now, as you persevere in your journey as
pilgrims of hope and of love.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, 29 August 2024,
Memorial of the Martyrdom of Saint John the
Baptist.
FRANCIS
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