Dear young people of Torino!
Dear young people who have come from Piedmont and surrounding regions!
I am truly glad to be with you on this visit to Turin to venerate the Holy Shroud. I greet all of you with great affection and thank you for your welcome and the enthusiasm of your faith.
Through you, I greet all the young people of Turin and of the dioceses of Piedmont, with a special prayer for those who are living in situations of suffering, difficulty or disorientation.
I address a special thought and strong encouragement to those among you who are taking the road towards priesthood, the consecrated life, or towards generous choices to serve the neediest.
I thank your Pastor, Cardinal Severeino Poletto, for the kind words he has addressed to me, and I thank your representatives who presented to me the propositions, the problems and the expectations of the young people of this city and the region.
Twenty five years ago. on the occasion of World Youth Day, our beloved Venerable John Paul II wrote an Apostolic Letter to the young people of the world, focused on the encounter of Lesus with the rich young man in the Gospel (Letter to the Youth, March 11, 1985).
On the basis of this Gospel passage (cfr Mk 10,17-22; Mt 19,16-22) - which was also the subject of my reflection for this year's message for World Youth Day, I wish to offer some thoughts that I hope may help you in your spiritual growth and in your mission within the Church andin the world.
The young man in the Gospel, we know, asks Jesus: "What must I do to have eternal life?" Today it is not easy to speak about eternal life and eternal realities, because the mentality of our time tells us that nothing is definitive - that everything changes, and changes rapidly.
"To change' has become, in many cases, the order of the day, the most exalting exercise of freedom, and that is why even you, young people, have often come to think that it is impossible to make definitive choices which would commit you for the rest of your life.
But is this the right way to use your freedom? Is it really true that in order to be happy, we should content ourselves with small momentary joys which, after they are done, leave bitterness in the heart? Dear young people, this is not true freedom, and true happiness cannot be reached that way.
Each of us is created not to make provisional and revocable choices, but definitive and irrevocable choices that give a full sense to our existence. We see it in our life: every beautiful experience which fills us with happiness, we don't want to end.
God has created us with 'for always' in mind, he has placed in the heart of each of us the seed of a life that can achieve something beautiful and great. Have the courage to make definitive choices and live them faithfully! The Lord can call you to matrimony, to the priesthood, to the consecrated life, to some special way of giving yourself: answer him generously!
In the dialog with the young man, who possessed many riches, Jesus indicated what was the most important and greatest wealth in life: love. To love God and to love others with all of oneself. The word love - we know - lends itself to many interpretations and has different meanings. We need a Teacher, Christ, who teaches us its most authentic and profound meaning, who leads to the the source of love and life.
Love is the name of God himself. The apostle John reminds us: "God is love", and he adds, "Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins", and "if God so loved us, we also must love one another" (1 Jn 4,8.10-11)
In the encounter with Christ and in reciprocal love, we experience in ourselves the life of God, who stays in us with his perfect, total, eternal love (cfr 1 Jn 4,12).
Therefore there is nothing greater for man - a mortal and limited being - than to participate in the lif0e of God's love. Today, we live in a cultural context that does not favor profound and disinterested human relationships, but on the contrary, often leads us to close in on ourselves, to individualism, to allowing selfishness to prevail.
But the heart of a young person is by nature sensitive to true love. That is why I address each of you with great confidence to say: It is not easy to make something beautiful and great in your life - it is demanding, but with Christ, everything is possible.
In the look of Jesus, who, as the Gospel tells us, gazed with love on the young man, we grasp God's desire to be with us, to be near us. God desires our Yes, our love. Yes, dear young people, Jesus wants to be your friend, your brother in life, the teacher who shows you the way to follow in order to achieve happiness.
He loves you for who you are, in your frailty and weakness, because, touched by his love, you can be transformed.
Live this encounter with Christ's love in a strong personal relationship with him. Live it in the Church, especially in the Sacraments. Live it in the Eucharist, in which his Sacrifice is made present: he truly gives his Body and Blood for us, to redeem the sins of mankind, so that we may become one with him, so that we too can learn the logic of giving oneself.
Live it in Confession, where in offering us his forgiveness, Jesus welcomes us with all our limitations, in order to give us a new heart that is able to love as he does.
Learn and be familiar with the Word of God, and meditate on it, especially in lectio divina, the spiritual rading of the Bible.
Finally, learn to encounter the love of Christ in the Church's testimony of charity. Turin's history offers you splendid examples: follow them, concretely living the gratuity of service. Everything in the ecclesial community should be aimed at making men tangibly feel the infinte charity of God.
Dear friends, the love of Christ for teh young man of the Gospel is the same that he has for each of you. It is not a love confined to teh past, it is not an illusion, it is not reserved for a few.
You will encounter this love and will experience all its fecundity if you sincerely seek the Lord and if you licve with commitment your participation in the lofe of the Christian community. Let each one feel himself 'a living part' of the Church, engaged in its work of evangelization, without fear, in a spirit of sincere harmony with your brothers in the faith and in communion with your Pastors, leaving behind every individualist tendency even in living the faith, in order to breathe in fully the beauty of being part of the great mosaic that is the Church of Christ.
Today, I cannot fail to point to a young man of your city as a model - Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who was beaitified twenty years ago. His existence was completely enveloped by the grace and the lvoe of God, and was devoted, with serenity and joy, to passionate service of Christ and of his brothers.
Young like you, he lived his Christian formation with great commitment and agve his testimony of faith, simply and effectively. A youngman who was fgascinated by the beauty of the Gospel of the Beatitudes, who experienced all the joy of being a friend of Christ, of following him, of feeling himself very much a living part of the Church.
Dear young people, have the courage to choose what is essential in life. "To live, but not just to scrape a living!", the Blessed Pier Girogio often said. Like him, you will discover that it is worth committing yourself for God and with God, to answer his call in your fundamental choices, and in your daily decisions, even when there is a price to pay.
The spiritual path of the Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati reminds us that the path of the disciples of Christ requires the courage to get out of oneself, to follow the road of the Gospel. You cna live this demanding path of the spirit in the parishes and in other ecclesial entities.
You can live it in pilgrimage on World Youth Days, an occasion that is always awaited. I know you are preating for the next great meeting, which will take place in Madrid in 2011. I wish with all my heart that this extraordinary event, to which I hope you can participate in great numbers, may contribute to make grow in each of you the enthusiasm adn faithfulness to follow Christ and accepting his message with joy as the soruce of new life.
Young people of Turin and Piedmont, be witnesses for Christ in our time! May the Holy Shroud be, especially for you, an invitation to imprint on your spirit God's face of love, so that you yourselves, in your circles, among your contemporaries, may be a credible expression of the face of Christ.
May Mary, whom you venerate in your Marian shrines, and St. John Bosco, patron of young people, help you to follow Christ, without ever tiring.
You will always have my prayers and my Blessing, which I give you with great affection. Thank you for your attention.