Pope Francis’ message for World Youth Day 2024: “Hope conquers all anxiety and weariness”
The Message of Pope Francis to young people for the 39th World Youth Day, which will be celebrated in dioceses round the world on 24 November 2024, is entirely focused on the Jubilee and the theme of “Hope that does not disappoint”.
“Last year we began travelling along the path of hope towards the Great Jubilee by reflecting on St Paul’s expression ‘Rejoicing in hope’ (Rom 12:12). To prepare for the Jubilee pilgrimage of 2025, this year we are drawing inspiration from the prophet Isaiah, who says: ‘Those who hope in the Lord […] walk and do not grow weary’ (Is 40:31)”.
“Today, we too live in times marked by dramatic situations that generate despair and prevent us from looking to the future with serenity: the tragedy of war, social injustices, inequalities, hunger and the exploitation of human beings and the natural environment,” continued the Pope in the Message published on September 17. “Often the ones who pay the highest price are young people. You sense the uncertainty of the future and are not sure about where your dreams will lead. In this way, you can be tempted to live without hope, as prisoners of boredom, depression and even be drawn into risk-taking and destructive behaviors (cf. Spes Non Confundit, 12). For this reason, dear young people, I would like the message of hope to reach you. Today too, the Lord is opening a highway before you, and he invites you to set out on it with joy and hope.”
Each person's life is a "pilgrimage", the Holy Father emphasizes, "a journey that pushes us beyond ourselves, a journey in search of happiness. The Christian life in particular is a pilgrimage towards God, our salvation, and the fullness of all that is good.” But the journey also includes tiredness, fatigue, and sometimes the boredom that comes with repetitiveness. "In some cases, anxiety and inner fatigue are brought on by social pressures, the need to attain certain levels of success in our studies, our work and our personal life. This produces a certain despondency, as we find ourselves running from one thing to another in an empty ‘activism’ that makes us fill our days with a thousand things and, in spite of this, feel that we never manage to do enough and never quite measure up. This tiredness is often accompanied by a certain boredom, the apathy and dissatisfaction that affects those who never set out, choose, decide, take risks, preferring to remain in their own comfort zone, closed in on themselves, seeing and judging the world from a distance, without ever ‘dirtying their hands’ with problems, with other people, with life itself. This kind of tiredness is like a wet cement in which we stand; eventually it hardens, weighs us down, paralyzes us and prevents us from moving forward. I prefer the tiredness of those who are moving forward, not the ennui of those who stand still with no desire to move!”
When faced with the risk of apathy, or the tiredness of the ‘spiritual desert’, the Pope suggests an antidote to young people. “The solution to tiredness, oddly enough, is not to stand still and rest. It is to set out and become pilgrims of hope. This is my invitation to you: walk in hope! Hope overcomes all weariness, every crisis, and every worry. It gives us a powerful incentive to press forward, for it is a gift received from God himself. The Lord fills our life with meaning, sheds light on our path and shows us its ultimate direction and goal.”
So , the invitation is to set out towards the Jubilee "not as mere tourists, but as pilgrims". Pilgrims, says the Pope, "immerse themselves fully in the places they encounter, listen to the message they communicate, and make them a part of their quest for happiness and fulfilment. The Jubilee pilgrimage is meant to be the outward sign of an inward journey that all of us are called to make towards our final destination."
The Holy Father's wish is to meet the young people in Rome in 2025. "I encourage you to approach this experience with three fundamental attitudes. First, thanksgiving, with hearts open to praise God for his many gifts, especially the gift of life. Then, a spirit of seeking, as an expression of our heart’s unquenchable thirst to encounter the Lord. And finally, penance, which helps us to look within, to acknowledge the wrong paths and decisions we have sometimes taken."
When the young people arrive in St. Peter's Square, the Holy Father writes, they will be "embraced" and welcomed by the great colonnade created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. "The entire colonnade appears as two open arms, an image of the Church, our mother, who embraces all her children. In this coming Holy Year of Hope, I invite all of you to experience the embrace of our merciful God, to experience his pardon and the writing off of all our ‘interior debts’, as in the biblical tradition of the jubilee years. In this way, embraced by God and born again in him, you too can become open arms to embrace your many friends and peers who need to feel, through your welcome, the love of God the Father. May each of you give even just a smile, a warm gesture of friendship, a kind look, a ready ear, a good deed, in the knowledge that, in the Spirit of Jesus, these can become, for those who receive them, rich seeds of hope and thus become tireless missionaries of joy.”