Fifteen years have passed since the wooden Cross, entrusted by the Pope to young people from all over the world, marked the opening stage of a great and ever more widely anticipated event:  the World Day of Youth to be celebrated in Rome from 15^th to 20^th August 2000.  Now, after having made its pilgrimage across five continents, the “Young peoples’ Cross” is returning to Rome, from where it set out.  And it has never happened before that the World Day coincided with a Jubilee, thus becoming a “Jubilee of the Young”.  In the framework of the post-Conciliar light, this Jubilee will be a genuine impetus for the lay ministry of the young.

The Pope's commission to young people

From the “sanctuary city”, the Pope will be presenting to the “Young Church” its commission for the Third Millennium:  “If you believe that Christ has revealed the love of the Father for every creature – wrote John Paul II in his message for the 15^th WDY: you cannot help but devote all your efforts to contributing to building a new world, founded on the power of love and of forgiveness, on the constant struggle against injustice and all physical and moral and spiritual poverty, on the direction of politics, culture and technology towards the service of humanity and its whole development”.  Moreover, the Holy Father goes on: “how can you affirm your belief in God made man if you do not take a stand against anything that degrades the human person and the family?”. Thus the World Day of Youth will challenge every young person to become “intrepid apostles of the Gospel, and builders of a new humanity”. The real surprise lies in this commission delivered to the young people by the Holy Father.  An exhortation addressed to young Catholics and to the new generations of the whole planet. 

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