The Pontificate of Pope John Paul II will go down in history for a great many reasons...too many to recall here.  For young people, his Pontificate will go down in the history of their hearts for "JPII" was and is a true Father for the young. 

Our beloved Pope John Paul II taught us how to love Christ and how to serve Him.  He taught us through his example and his zeal.  One great means of catechesis for youth was the World Youth Days, which began in 1986.

 

Each World Youth Day is assigned a theme.  Putting these themes together, like a puzzle, we hear again the paternal voice of Johh Paul II...and, without seam, we now hear the paternal voice of our newest Shepherd and Father, Pope Benedict XVI. 

Essentially, in both of these voices, we hear and we follow the
VOICE OF OUR LORD.

When you are faced with challenges, decisions, or trials, print out the compilation of WYD Themes (listed in chronological order), go to the nearest Eucharistic Adoration Chapel and read it through slowly.  Not only is it a letter of direction from heart of Our Lord, but also from Pope John Paul II. 

 

In each line, we find sure guidance on how we are to act, to pray, and to respond to Our Lord and to our brothers and sisters. 

In these passages, we understand more clearly that discernment is about listening and about being loved and chosen by a Father Who cares about every detail of our life. 

We must never assume that Jesus is going to abandon us along the winding path of life...and especially along the particularly windy path of discernment.  It is precisely at such times when Jesus and His Church is most near to us.

Pope John Paul II knew and understood the mind of the young, and he knew and understood that we can often feel very alone in our journey to Christ.  Perhaps that was partly what inspired him to begin World Youth Days. 

It is as if Pope John Paul II said to each and every young person...and to you in particular...you are NOT alone.  Look around you, from every corner of the world, there are young hearts rising up beneath the banner of Christ and His Church and saying:  

"I will follow You, wherever You lead me."

"During youth a person puts the question, "What must I do?" not only to himself and to other people from whom he can expect an answer, especially his parents and teachers, but he puts it also to God, as his Creator and Father. He puts it in the context of this particular interior sphere in which he has learned to be in a close relationship with God, above all in prayer. He therefore asks God: "What must I do?", what is Your plan for my life? Your creative, fatherly plan? What is Your will? I wish to do it.

In this context the "plan" takes on the meaning of a "life vocation", as something which is entrusted by God to an individual as a task.

Young people, entering into themselves and at the same time entering into conversation with Christ in prayer, desire as it were to read the eternal thought which God the Creator and Father has in their regard.

 

They then become convinced that the task assigned to them by God is left completely to their own freedom, and at the same time is determined by various circumstances of an interior and exterior nature. Examining these circumstances, the young person, boy or girl, constructs his or her plan of life and at the same time recognizes this plan as the vocation to which God is calling him or her.

 

I desire therefore to entrust to all of you, the young people to whom this Letter is addressed, this marvelous task which is linked with the discovery before God of each one's life vocation. This is an exciting task. It is a fascinating interior undertaking. In this undertaking your humanity develops and grows, while your young personality acquires ever greater inner maturity. You become rooted in that which each of you is, in order to become that which you must become: for yourself- for other people-for God.

Parallel with the process of discovering one's own "life vocation" there should also be a progressively clearer realization of how this life vocation is at the same time a "Christian vocation".

Here it should be noted that in the period before the Second Vatican Council the concept of "vocation" was applied first of all to the priesthood and religious life, as if Christ had addressed to the young person his evangelical "Follow me" only for these cases. The Council has broadened this way of looking at things. Priestly and religious vocations have kept their particular character and their sacramental and charismatic importance in the life of the People of God. But at the same time the awareness renewed by the Second Vatican Council of the universal sharing of all the baptized in Christ's three-fold prophetic, priestly and kingly mission, (tria munera), as also the awareness of the universal vocation to holiness, have led to a realization of the fact that every human life vocation, as a Christian vocation, corresponds to the evangelical call. Christ's "Follow me" makes itself heard on the different paths taken by the disciples and confessors of the divine Redeemer. There are different ways of becoming imitators of Christ-not only by bearing witness to the eschatological Kingdom of truth and love, but also by striving to bring about the transformation of the whole of temporal reality according to the spirit of the Gospel. It is at this point that there also begins the apostolate of the laity, which is inseparable from the very essence of the Christian vocation.

These are the extremely important premises for the plan of life which corresponds to the essential dynamism of your youth. You must examine this plan-independently of the concrete content "of life" with which it will be filled-in the light of the words addressed by Christ to the young man in the Gospel.

You must also rethink-and very profoundly-the meaning of Baptism and Confirmation. For in these two sacraments is contained the fundamental deposit of the Christian life and vocation. From these there begins the path towards the Eucharist, which contains the fullness of the sacramental gifts granted to the Christian: all the Church's spiritual wealth is concentrated in this Sacrament of love. It is also necessary-and always in relationship with the Eucharist-to reflect on the Sacrament of Penance, which is of irreplaceable importance for the formation of the Christian personality, especially if it is linked with spiritual direction, which is a systematic school of the interior life."  Taken from the Apostolic Letter Dilecti Amici

 

Suggested Reading/Viewing by or about JP II

  • My Dear Young Friends: Pope John Paul II Speaks to Teens on Life, Love, and Courage, by John Paul II, edited by John Vitek
  • Gift and Mystery, by John Paul II
  • John Paul II, We Love You: World Youth Day Reflections, 1984-2005 (Paperback) by Barbara A. Murray (Editor)
  •  God's Revolution, World Youth Day and other Cologne Talks, Ignatius Press
  • Miracles of John Paul II, Pawel Zuchniewicz
  • We're on a Mission from God, The GenerationX Guide to John Paul II and the Real Meaning of Life, Mary Beth Bonacci
  • John Paul II and University Students (DVD, 125 min)

 

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