At 10.30 this morning, in the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace at Castel Gandolof, with a direct link to St. Peter's Square, the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, met representatives of the Jubilee Volunteers, the directors and workers of the Agency for the restoration and services of Sodexho, a group form the Schoenstatt Movement, and various other pilgrims. Back in St. Peter's Square there were gathered 20,000 volunteers for the WYD who had celebrated their jubilee and had attended a Mass celebrated by His Eminence Camillo Cardinal Ruini. We are publishing here the addrress given by the Pope to the various pilgrim groups.
THE ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER
My
dear young people,
1.
In your Jubilee pilgrimage itinerary which has
taken you to Rome, to the Basilicas and to other holy places associated with
the memory of the Apostles, you wanted to include a visit to the Successor of
Peter, and for that reason you came here to Castel Gandolfo to visit me.
I warmly thank you for your presence and
salute you! Thank you for this
demonstration of
affection. I sincerely hope that this pilgrimage may provide you with the
opportunity to renew
and strengthen your commitment to the
Lord. Christ needs souls who know how
to witness to
the world the radical novelyt of his
Gospel. And I invite you to open your
hearts to the Lord
with great generosity because, after your
stay in Rome, you may be able to return home full
of
even greater apostolic zeal, sot aht you can become courageous missionaries of
the new
evangelization. Looking at the way you live, with your ambitions on the
attainment of
sanctity, may others whom you meet
experience the joy of being disciples of Christ.
In these days the liturgy presents us
very important saints, who stimulate us to follow
Christ with complete fidelity. Just think of Saint Teresa of the Cross,
co-patorn of
Europe, enclosed nun and martyr of the
last century, think of Saint Maximilian Kolbe,
whose feast we celebrate on Monday next,
think of St. Laurence, who allowed his service
as deacon give meaning to his life, or of
St. Clare of Assisi, who lived the mystery of the
Eucharist. May their intercession, combined with that of Saints Peter and
Paul, support
amd help you to walk in faith and
charity, labouring for the Kingdom of God, wherever
Divind Providence sends you.
2.
I should like to greet with particular warmth
the "Jubilee Volunteers", already hard at
work for several days to see to it that WYD takes place in optimal
conditions. We are
dealing here with an event eagerly anticipated and which all believers
will be watching,
because it is the young generations which must rekindle the torch of
faith and carry it
to their contemporaries and to the whole of humanity in the third
Millennium.
A representative group of them is here, while the others are in St.
Peter's Square, yet
they can hear us thanks to the radio link. They have attended the Mass celebrated by
the Cardinal Vicar, and they are concluding their Jubilee celebrations
by passing thourgh
the Holy Door. I should like to
join to my thanks those working in the Centre for
Jubilee Volunteers, who are coordinating the different groups of
volunteers who have
made themselves available to the Holy Year pilgrims.
My dear friends, I salute you and wish to express my gratitude for the
generosity with
which you have carried out your work.
God will reward you for the devotion and the
generosity which you have shown in the execution of the service which
your were
called to render. I should like
to ask you to help your contemporaries and the pilgrims
from all over the world to participate in an orderly fasionn in the
various moments of the WYD. Help them
too, through seeing that things move ahead in an orderly fashion, to find
Christ and to make of this international meeting an unforgettable experience
for young people, for the young Church.
Help them too to enjoy just being together in a positive spirit so as to
create the basis of anew humanity, based on the values of fraternity and
peace. This experience also expresses
itself in the variety of colours. Through
the variety of colours and the variety of identity tags which you carry. Each person possesses an identity card.
3.
I should like to thank also the directors of
the Sodexho Agency. They are very
important because they are looking after the provision of food in the various
restaurants/canteens
appointed for the WYD. Their
work is all the more meritorious for the gesture of solidarity in giving up a
few days of their annual vacation so as to remain continually available to the
participants of this extraordinary Jubilee event and of their gift of an hour's
wages to papal charities. So, the Pope
too has won by this! So, I should like
to thank you most warmly for your care and generosity. May God reward you!