As word leaked out, some in the American Church began quietly to voice their concerns to Rome. It would be a disaster, nobody would come. Denver was not a coastal city near tens of millions of people. Besides, the youth weren't really into Pope John Paul II, well at least not the ones whose parents were voicing their concerns to Rome. The Holy Father knew better. The year was 1993 and the event was World Youth Day. Those four days would become a tremendous success for the Church and for the former "youth minister" from Krakow. Many in the mainstream media, including the youth oriented MTV, were stunned by the success of World Youth Day. It would forever be a signpost that the tide had started to turn. The youth were embracing the Church.
In the last few years of Pope John Paul II's pontificate, some in the mainstream media dismissed the large crowds coming to Rome as a "cult of personality." These same skeptics, even some Catholic clergy voiced the opinion that the crowds would tail off now that an older, "more doctrinaire" German was pope. The same people who rarely said anything kind about Pope John Paul II when he was alive are now saying Pope Benedict can't possibly draw the crowds that the previous Holy Father did. Yet the crowds keep coming. The first two years of Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate have seen record crowds. Even with increased travel security and the world economy being far from perfect, record crowds of the faithful, many of them disproportionately young are coming to see the man who spoke out against the "dictatorship of relativity" that is so infecting their youth culture.
Young people see some of their friends leave the faith for others faiths, and often for no faith at all. They see so many lives lived without focus or adherence to ancient teachings and traditions. Therefore, the many who remain faithful to the Church want to experience and learn more about the 2,000 years of Church teachings, the scriptures, traditions, sacraments, devotions and signs and symbols of the faith. Often young people in the Church love Marian devotions and Eucharistic Adoration. Whenever a large youth event is organized, many priests are needed for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I have personally witnessed youths waiting for over an hour to go to Confession without any prodding from organizers. It was said that while there were hundreds and thousands of priests hearing confessions during Denver's World Youth Day, some priests literally passed out from exhaustion after hearing confessions for hours on end.
Young people are listening and following the advice of chastity speakers like Jason Evert as well as Catholic campus groups like FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) who strongly adhere to the Church's teachings. The tide is turning toward Catholicism because young people are listening to those who adhere to the Church's teachings. They see enough frivolity on television and the world around them; they want something that has endured the test of time. Perhaps the reason I could write a book titled The Tide Is Turning Toward Catholicism is best summed up in the words of Nikki Shasserre, spokeswoman for the Catholic campus group FOCUS. I asked her if she could respond to a comment from those I had spoken to from an earlier generation who said, "We want to change the Church." She replied that her generation had seen the consequences of that mindset. "We want the Church to change us." Indeed the tide is turning!
Here is what Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote before world youth day in Cologne.
I have it on audio tape and it brings me to tears when ever
listen to it.
We were so Blessed to have him as our Holy Father!
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2WYD19.HTM
We wish to see Jesus” (Jn 12:21) is the theme of the Holy Father’s Message for the 19th World Youth Day, to be celebrated in the Dioceses on Palm Sunday, 4 April, this year. The 20th World Youth Day will be celebrated next year, 2005, in Cologne, Germany. The following is a translation of the Holy Father’s Message, which was written in Italian and dated 22 February 2004.
My dear young people!
1. This year 2004 is the final stage before the great event in Cologne; where the 20th World Youth Day will be celebrated in 2005. I therefore invite you to intensify your path of spiritual preparation by reflecting on the theme I have chosen for this 19th World Youth Day: “We wish to see Jesus” (Jn 12:21,).
This is a request made to the Apostles one day by some “Greeks”. They wanted to know who Jesus was. They had come not simply to see what kind of impression the man Jesus would make. Moved by great curiosity and a presentiment that they had found the answer to their deepest questions, they wanted to know who he really was and whence he came.
‘To see Jesus, we first need to let him look at us!’
2. My dear young people, I want you too to imitate those “Greeks” who spoke to Philip, moved by a desire to “see Jesus”. May your search be motivated not simply by intellectual curiosity, though that too is something positive, but be stimulated above all by an inner urge to find the answer to the question about the meaning of your life. Like the rich young man in the Gospel, you too should go in search of Jesus to ask him: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mk 10:17). Mark the Evangelist states clearly that Jesus looked at him and loved him. You may remember another episode in which Jesus says to Nathaniel: “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you”, drawing from the heart of that Israelite, in whom there was no guile (cf. Jn 1:47), a fine profession of faith: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!” (Jn 1:49). Those who approach Jesus with a heart free of prejudice can quite easily come to have faith because Jesus himself has already seen them and loved them first. The most sublime aspect of human dignity is precisely man’s vocation to communicate with God in a profound exchange of glances that is life transforming. In order to see Jesus, we first need to let him look at us!
The desire to see Jesus dwells deep in the heart of each man and each woman. My dear young people, allow Jesus to gaze into your eyes so that the desire to see the Light and to experience the splendour of the Truth may grow within you. Whether we are aware of it or not, God has created us because he loves us and so that we in turn may love him. This is the reason for the unquenchable nostalgia for God that man preserves in his heart: “Your face, Lord, do I seek. Do not hide your face from me” (Ps 27:8-9). That Face — we know — was revealed to us by God in Jesus Christ.
Seek Christ with every possible means
3. My dear young people, don’t you too wish to contemplate the beauty of that Face? That is the question I address to you on this World Youth Day 2004. Do not be too hasty in your reply. First of all, create a silence within yourselves. Allow this ardent desire to see God emerge from the depth of your hearts, a desire that is sometimes stifled by the distractions of the world and by the allurements of pleasures. Allow this desire to emerge and you will have the wonderful experience of meeting Jesus. Christianity is not simply a doctrine: it is an encounter in faith with God made present in our history through the incarnation of Jesus.
Try by every means to make this encounter possible, and look towards Jesus who is passionately seeking you. Seek him with the eyes of the flesh through the events of life and in the faces of others; but seek him too with the eyes of the soul through prayer and meditation on the Word of God, because “the contemplation of Christ’s face cannot fail to be inspired by all that we are told about him in Sacred Scripture” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, n. 17).
Our complete fulfilment depends upon finding Christ
4. To see Jesus, to contemplate his Face, is an unquenchable desire, but it is a desire that man unfortunately may also deform. This is what happens with sin, because it is the very essence of sin to draw our eyes away from the Creator and to turn them towards what he has created.
Those “Greeks” in search of the truth would not have been able to approach Christ if their desire, animated by a free and voluntary act, had not been expressed through a clear decision: “We wish to see Jesus”. To be truly free means having the strength to choose the One for whom we were created and accepting his lordship over our lives. You perceive it in the depths of your heart: all that is good on earth, all professional success, even the human love that you dream of, can never fully satisfy your deepest and most intimate desires. Only an encounter with Jesus can give full meaning to your lives: “for you made us for yourself, and our heart finds no peace until it rests in you” (Saint Augustine, Confessions, I, 1). Do not let yourselves be distracted from this search. Persevere in it because it is your fulfilment and your joy that is at stake.
It is not enough to speak of Jesus; you must ‘show’ him
5. Dear friends, if you learn to discover Jesus in the Eucharist, you will also know how to discover him in your brothers and sisters, particularly in the very poor. The Eucharist received with love and adored with fervour becomes a school of freedom and charity in order to fulfil the commandment to love. Jesus speaks to us in the wonderful language of the gift of self and of love so great as to give our own life for it. Is that an easy thing? You know very well that it is not! It is not easy to forget our self, but if we do, it draws us away from possessive and narcissistic love and opens us up to the joy of a love that is self-giving. This Eucharistic school of freedom and charity teaches us to overcome superficial emotions in order to be rooted firmly in what is true and good; it frees us from self-attachment in order to open ourselves to others. It teaches us to make the transition from an affective love to an effective love. For love is not merely a feeling; it is an act of will that consists of preferring, in a constant manner, the good of others to the good of oneself: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).
It is with such inner freedom and such burning charity that Jesus teaches us to find him in others, first of all in the disfigured face of the poor. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta loved to distribute her “visiting card” on which were written the words: “The fruit of silence is prayer; the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace”. This is the way to meet Christ. Go out to meet all of human suffering spurred on by your generosity and with the love that God instils in your hearts by means of the Holy Spirit: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25: 40). The world is in urgent need of a great prophetic sign of fraternal charity! It is not enough to “speak” of Jesus. We must also let him be “seen” somehow through the eloquent witness of our own life (cf. Novo Millennio Ineunte, n. 16).
Do not forget to seek Christ and to recognize his presence in the Church, which is like the continuation of his saving action in time and space. It is in the Church and through her that Jesus continues to make himself visible today and to allow humanity to come to him. In your parishes, movements and communities, be welcoming to one another in order to build communion among yourselves. This is the visible sign of the presence of Christ in the Church, in spite of being so often blurred by human sin.
Take your burdens to the foot of the Cross
6. Do not be surprised, then, when you meet the Cross on your way. Did not Jesus say to his disciples that the grain of wheat must fall into the earth and die in order to bear much fruit (cf. Jn 12:23-26)? He was indicating in this way that his life given unto death would bear fruit. You know this: after the Resurrection of Christ, death shall no longer have the last word. Love is stronger than death. If Jesus accepted death on the Cross, thus making it the source of life and the sign of love, he did so not out of weakness or because he wished to suffer. He did so to gain our salvation and to allow us henceforth to take part in his divine life.
It is just this truth that I wished to bring to the minds of the young people of the world when I entrusted them with a large wooden Cross at the end of the Holy Year of the Redemption in 1984. Ever since then, it has travelled through different countries in preparation for your World Days. Hundreds of thousands of young people have prayed around this Cross. By laying at the feet of the Cross the burdens that had lain heavily upon them, they discovered that they were loved by God. Many of them also found the strength to change their lives.
This year, on the 20th anniversary of that event, the Cross will be solemnly welcomed in Berlin, From there it will commence its pilgrimage throughout Germany, concluding in Cologne next year. Today I wish to repeat the words I said to you back then: “My dear young people,... I entrust to you the Cross of Christ! Carry it throughout the world as a symbol of Christ’s love for humanity, and announce to everyone that only in the death and Resurrection of Christ can we find salvation and redemption”.
Fearless witness of love that is stronger than death
7. Your contemporaries expect you to be witnesses of the One whom you have met and who gives you life. In your daily lives, be intrepid witnesses of a love that is stronger than death. It is up to you to accept this challenge! Put your talents and your youthful enthusiasm at the service of the proclamation of the Good News. Be the enthusiastic friends of Jesus who present the Lord to all those who wish to see him, especially those who are farthest away from him. Philip and Andrew brought those “Greeks” to Jesus: God uses human friendship to lead hearts to the source of divine charity. Feel responsible for the evangelization of your friends and all your contemporaries.
Throughout her life, the Blessed Virgin Mary steadfastly contemplated the face of Christ. May she keep you forever under the gaze of her Son (cf. Rosarium Virginis Mariae, n. 10) and sustain you as you prepare for World Youth Day in Cologne. I ask you to set out towards it from now with responsible and active enthusiasm. The Virgin of Nazareth, the compassionate and patient Mother, will mould within you a contemplative heart and teach you to fix your gaze on Jesus so that, in this world that passes away, you shall be prophets of a world that does not die.
With affection I impart a special Blessing upon you that will accompany you on your way.
From the Vatican, 22 February 2004
While some "doubting Thomases'" might have become believers after Pope John Paul II's funeral, when over one third of the record crowd of five to seven million were under the age of 25, other skeptics still either don't buy into the fact that many young people also like Pope Benedict XVI or just throw up their hands in disbelief. Again, in a culture devoid of moral absolutes and certainty, the Church stands tall amidst the morass. Witness World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne, Germany. The refrain from the mainstream media was familiar: Pope Benedict is not Pope John Paul II, and few will come. Over one million young people came. They still come to Rome and other locations that the Holy Father visits.