1985 Rome - the origins of World Youth Day

World Youth Day - Near the Pope on the Path to Christ
- Monsignor Renato Boccardo
On Palm Sunday of 1984, the Pope convoked the youth of Rome to celebrate with him the Holy Year of Redemption: their answer was enthusiastic and surpassed all expectations. In 1985, the UN nominates an International Year for young people the Pope writes a letter to the young people of the world, and he meets with them again in Saint Peter's Square to kick off the adventure of World Youth Day.

"All the young people," said Pope John Paul on the annual encounter with the Roman Curia, "should feel followed by the Church: that is why all the Church, in union with the Successor of Peter feels more and more that it is committed, on a world scale, in favor of young people, of their worries, their questions, their openness and their hopes, in order to match their expectations, by communicating the certainty who is Christ, the Truth who is Christ, love who is Christ. And in this privileged attention that the Church nurtures in their regard, young people need to find proof that they count a lot because they are worth a lot. Their lives are precious for the Church." (December 20, 1985)

From then, World Youth Day is held every year in the local Churches on Palm Sunday, or on another opportune date, and every two years its held in an extraordinary form in some city on the planet chosen by the Pope on the invitation of the national Episcopal Conferences: its a sort of "pilgrimage" around the world.

In light of every visit, the Holy Father addressed the young people with a Message which determines the path of preparation for the celebration and of the celebration, and together it becomes a sort of Catechisis for youth. Convoking them to the encounter, he invites them to deepen their own existential walk of faith and to verify what and what kind of vitality they have in their own lives. It is a path of faith which is accomplished in time through particular circumstances, but which transcends the events in order to break open wide horizons and reveal the summits of existence. In this way we understand the true sense of the pilgrimage towards World Youth Day, which has a geographical summit and a prefixed date, but whose main objective is that of leading on the path towards the deepest comprehension of life and of God's project in it.

In the text for the XI World Youth Day (1996), the Pope announced the themes chosen up to the year 2000:

1997:"Master, where do you live? Come and See!" (John 1, 38-39)
1998: "The Holy Spirit will teach you all things" (John 14, 26)
1999: "The Father loves you" (John 16,27)
2000: "God became man and came to live amongst us" (John 1, 4)

The proposal of World Youth Day does not have any alternative with respect to the normal work already achieved, often with great sacrifice and abnegation in favor of youth. Instead, it aims to weld an interior effort and offer new stimuli towards commitment, the accomplishment of work which more and more calls for participation. Beyond that, it is necessary to highlight that by trying to create a renewed fervor in ecclesial action within young people does not mean to isolate them from the rest of the community, instead it aims to make them protagonists of a contagious apostolate in all the other ages and situations of life.

Some of the most memorable International Youth Encounters on the World Day with the Pope include those held in Rome, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Compostela, Czestochowa, Denver, Manila and Paris.

World Youth Day is founded on some determining elements: convocation, the Message of the Pope, the convergence on the place of celebration, the participation in moments of catechism which are developed in a tridum, the vigil with the Holy Father, and the Eucharistic celebration.

All these components constitute a great catechism, an announcement to young people and to the world who are on the path of conversion to Christ, beginning with the profound experiences and questions of daily life of those who are attending. The Holy Father, above all others, is the Catechist, with his touching homilies, comments, gestures aimed at all the world; other catechists are also Cardinals and Bishops, who for three days speak and illustrate the fundamental themes of faith to different linguistic groups. The Word of God is central to this, the theological reflection is an instrument, prayer is a support, and communication and dialogue are the styles.

From a World Youth Day experience, a young person takes home that reflection on Christian life and that experience of faith which will assist him or her in facing the profound questions of existence. In the catechism, all the ecclesial experiences which young people are living are concentrated, the styles of aggregation, the ideas-strengths of the Movements, Associations and Communities, the choices of each person in a marvelous kaleidoscope which continuously creates unity around the Holy Father and the Bishops and which creates in the individual churches an outreaching education of faith in young generations.

A young French girl says that "the Pope is so full of faith that by seeing him you are transformed," while a young Italian boy said, "meeting the Pope and accepting his message means challenging one's own life and leading it on new paths." Thanks to these Encounters, says one German girl, "we learn to hear the Pope like a brother, but also as a father who carries all the young people of the world in his heart."

A young Mexican: "We young people have a need to know that we are not alone and to feel that we have a mission, that the Church has faith in us;" these gatherings, "are an expression of the new face of the Church" which, as an Indian boy affirms, "can hope in the youth of today, they are the ones who can keep it alive: give them a chance and you will see!"

A young Polish boy says: "Destroying the barriers and the divisions amongst people and races: only young people can do that if they are united in the same faith" and a girl from the former East Germany echoes that: "Young people of every race, nation and language, and yet all of one faith: a similar thing for me was unthinkable and yet here I am amongst them."

World Youth Day is made up of very intense days, very involving and very moving (for the number, the universality, the celebrations, the figure of the Pope and of the Bishops). The are inevitable complex experiences, clear in their sign, but not always in their meanings, whose results can only be verified at a future date, but undoubtedly they are signs of grace, which create thought.

It is above all in these occasions that the meaningful role of the Pope and his charisma is underscored. From here there is the passionate dialogue, happy, full of affection and love towards youth, the words (homilies) which are prolonged and multiplied, the applause the good-bye. If "the middle is always the message, a little," John Paul II has given his way of being present amongst youth a high profile of communication, with vigorous human and evangelic accents, focused on Christ who gives courage and liberty and pervades an impressive opening towards the young generations, the missionaries of the world.

"I, who am close to turning 80, try to keep myself young and I try to meet young people everywhere: from Rome to Buenos Aires, to Santiago de Compostela, to Czestochowa, to Denver, to Manila, to Paris and then again to Rome. These young people welcome me, they are happy that I am amongst them, they do not see my age, they make me feel young again.! And I wish this on everyone. It is a wonderful thing to be young, because there is a prospective: youth is the time of perspectives, because you look towards the future. But if one is 80 years old, is there a perspective? Yes, because you see eternal life...Resurrection is a grand home in the immortal life of God. I hope this on everyone. Thank you to all young people...young, and those young who are older, like me!" (Spoken at the Parish of Gesu Adolescente, in Rome on March 29, 1998).

It is striking how this "international youth" is tenaciously pursued by the Pope in these years as the key to the future. He invests and he calls on others to invest in youth precisely because they are young, in the vigor and freshness of initiatives; he wants them in pilgrimage round the cross of the Risen Christ as a path of freedom, he brings them around the world to help overcome barriers and provincial mentalities, he makes them breath the sensus Ecclesioe with the most beautiful and vibrant witnesses. And on the World Day he calls upon them to become the missionaries of the third millennium! It's an extremely interesting chapter of pedagogy of a massive youth gathering which is based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is interesting to note John Paul II's continuous calls to Jesus. The speech is so direct it is at once uplifting. And in front of the challenges of uncertainties and illness, the vision of Christ announced by the Church becomes in the words of the Pope an adequate alternative project of life and history.

And the youth? Striking is their reaction of welcome, not just on an emotional level, but its intelligent and thoughtful about the (missionary) project that the Pope calls them to accomplish; their easy manner of socializing and their commitment to faith. It is a season which does not yield immediate fruit, at least here in the west, but its one which requires maturity, of "growth" of a new world, according to the Pauline image (cf. Rom 8, 22). The path is laid out, it's already been walked on, but it needs to be followed with seriousness, courage, realism and hope.

It certainly deals with gigantic events, which are more complicated, rich in human dynamisms, and served by grace, but on which the devil (who easily succeeds) can rest his tail. The risk of fundamentalism and superficiality is real. Therefore it is necessary to reflect:

-World Youth Day is the sign-seed, which is revealed together with a faith-faithful which leaves an impression, and also requires an urgent need: purifying that same faith-faithful, and aiming it towards the Mystery of God and the Gospel, opening it to the world of others and comparing it with their needs, however difficult, of human or social order and gifting them with a cultural and deeper continuity.

-World Youth Day is a grand event for young Catholics, which puts in the spotlight the validity of events aggravated around transcendental values and together provokes the responsibility of a maturity through education in daily events and extraordinary ones like this one; the stimulus is born for educators and education to constantly keep open the closed outlook of young people to the Catholic dimension (historical and geographical) of being believable and together to make the relationship with the figure of the Pope and his "youth project" more valuable; also necessary is the commitment to create the experience of celebrations, to stimulate the missionary aspect, to rediscover the vocation to globality and solidarity, to expressing life as a gift of oneself.

In a word, the commitment is born for adults to move closer to young people not simply because of what they can do in the future, but for all that they can do today. Because being young - as the Pope teaches - is in itself a fundamental grace of the Spirit, the guarantee of the future and the source of hope.