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WORLD YOUTH DAY
Pope Benedict XVI - photo taken by St. Raphael's parishioner, Louis Sebastian, at the World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne, Germany.
WORLD YOUTH DAY 2008 IN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
“Standing before me I see a vibrant image of the universal Church. The variety of nations and cultures from which you hail shows that indeed Christ’s Good News is for everyone; it has reached the ends of the earth. Yet I know too that a good number of you are still seeking a spiritual homeland.Some of you, most welcome among us, are not Catholic or Christian. Others of you perhaps hover at the edge of parish and Church life. To you I wish to offer encouragement: step forward into Christ’s loving embrace; recognize the Church as your home. No one need remain on the outside, for from the day of Pentecost the Church has been one and universal.”
"Our world has grown
weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and
piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises. Our hearts and minds are
yearning for a vision of life where love endures, where gifts are shared, where
unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is
found in respectful communion. This is the work of the Holy Spirit!
Life
is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them
are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is
to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our
freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find
happiness and joy. Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another
consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself
becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces
truth."
Pope Benedict XVI