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Pope Francis’ message to young people for the fifth anniversary
of the “Christus vivit”
“Christ is alive and he loves you”
Dear young people,
Christ is alive and he wants you to be alive!
This certainty always fills my heart with joy, and now it inspires me to write you this Message, five years after the publication of the Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit, the fruit of the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the theme of: “Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment”.
Above all, I hope that my words will be a source of renewed hope for you. In today’s world, marked by so many conflicts and so much suffering, I suspect that many of you feel discouraged.
So I would like to begin with the proclamation “Christ is alive!” – which is the basis of our hope and that of all humanity:
I repeat this to each one of you: Christ is alive and he loves you with an infinite love.
His love for you is unaffected by your failings or your faults.
He gave his life for you, so, in his love for you, he did not wait until you are perfect.
Look at his outstretched arms on the cross, and “let yourself be saved again and again”.
Walk with him as with a friend, welcome him into your life and let him share all your joys and hopes, your problems and struggles of this time in your life.
You will see that the journey will become clearer and that your difficulties will be much less burdensome, because he will be carrying them with you.
So pray daily to the Holy Spirit who “draws you ever deeper into the heart of Christ, so that you may grow in his love, his life and his power”.
I want this proclamation to reach every one of you, so that you to accept it as living and true in your own lives and feel the desire to share it with your friends!
You have been given a great mission: to bear witness before everyone to the joy that comes from friendship with Christ.
At the beginning of my Pontificate, at the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, I urged you to make your voices heard! Hagan lio! Make noise!!
Today, I ask you once again: make your voices heard!
Proclaim, not so much with words but with your lives and your hearts, the truth that Christ lives!
And in this way, help the whole Church to rise up and set out again to bring his message to the entire world.
On 14 April 2024, we will celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the first great gathering of young people which, in the midst of the Holy Year of the Redemption, sowed the seeds of the future World Youth Days.
In 1984, at the end of that Jubilee Year, Saint John Paul II entrusted the cross of the World Youth Day to young people, giving them the mission of carrying it throughout the world as a sign and reminder that in Jesus, crucified and risen, alone we find salvation and redemption.
As you well know, that was a simple wooden cross, not a crucifix, precisely in order to remind us that it celebrates the victory of the resurrection, the triumph of life over death.
It says to everyone: “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen” (Lk 24:5).
See Jesus in the same way: alive and full of joy, the conqueror over death, a friend who loves you and wants to live in you.
Only in this way, in the light of his presence, will your memory of the past be fruitful, you will find courage in the present and be prepared to face the future with hope.
You will find the freedom you need to carry forward the history of your families, your grandparents, your parents, and the religious traditions of your countries, and to be in turn the leaders of tomorrow, the “artisans” of the future.
The Exhortation Christus Vivit is the fruit of a Church that wants to move forward together through listening, dialogue and constant discernment of the Lord’s will.
For this reason, more than five years ago, in preparation for the Synod on Young People, many of you, from different parts of the world, were invited to share your own hopes and expectations.
Hundreds of young people came to Rome and worked together for several days, collecting ideas to present to the Synod.
Thanks to their work, the Bishops were able to arrive at a broader and deeper vision of our world and of the Church.
It was a true “synodal experience” which bore great fruit and prepared the way for a new Synod, which we are celebrating now, in these years, precisely on the subject of synodality.
As we read in the Final Document of the 2018 Synod, “the participation of the young helped to ‘reawaken’ synodality, which is a ‘constitutive element of the Church’”.
Now, at this new phase of our ecclesial journey, we need more than ever to draw upon your creativity in order to explore new paths, always faithful to our roots.
Dear young people, you are the living hope of a Church on the move!
For this reason, I thank you for your presence and for your contribution to the life of the Body of Christ. And I encourage you never to leave us without your good way of “making a mess”, your drive, like that of a clean and well-tuned engine, and your own particular way of living and proclaiming the joy of the Risen Jesus! This is my prayer; and I ask you, please, to pray for me.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, 25 March 2024,
Monday of Holy Week.
FRANCIS
