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Running on Faith: Christ's Love Running through Their Veins

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Today the Church celebrates the optional memorial of Saint John Paul the Great. One of the great gifts that the sainted Pope gave to the Church was the establishment of World Youth Day, which took place on Palm Sunday in 1984 at the close of the Holy Year of Redemption. Over 300,000 young people from around the world gathered in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome to participate in an International Jubilee of youth.

Since then, the World Youth Day pilgrimage has traveled the globe as an international celebration of faith for Catholic youth and young adults as a way to bring them closer to Jesus and inspire them to the joyful service of living out the Gospel of Christ’s love for humanity. Pope Francis presided at the most recent World Youth Day, which took place in Panama in 2019. Addressing the hundreds of thousands of young people from 155 countries who gathered along Panama City’s Coastal Belt, the Holy Father pointed to the “the culture of encounter” that has inspired the pilgrimage since its founding:

“The culture of encounter is a call inviting us to dare to keep alive a shared dream…a dream that has a place for everyone. The dream for which Jesus gave his life on the cross, for which the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost and brought fire to the heart of every man and woman, in your hearts and mine, in the hope of finding room to grow and flourish. A dream named Jesus, sown by the Father in the confidence that it would grow and live in every heart. A dream running through our veins, thrilling our hearts and making them dance whenever we hear the command: ‘love one another; even as I have loved you. Have love for one another.’ A love that does not overwhelm or oppress, cast aside or reduce to silence, humiliate or domineer. It is the love of the Lord, a daily, discreet and respectful love; a love that is free and freeing, a love that heals and raises up…A merciful love that does not wait for ideal or perfect situations to show itself, nor accept excuses for its appearance.”

In his closing address the Holy Father said that “young people are not the future but ‘the now’ of God,” and he urged them, quoting Fr. Pedro Arrupe, the former Father General of the Jesuits, “to realize that you have a mission and fall in love.”

What a privilege to be entrusted with the mission of accompanying our students, the future servants and leaders of the world – and, if it please God, the future leaders of the global Church—at this precise moment on their pilgrimage through life. They are in the all-embracing “now” of God and coming to know and fall in love with Jesus Christ. And if they do not already have it, they will soon have Christ’s love running through their veins.

 

Fr. Ryan Lerner, Chaplain

Fr. Ryan Lerner, Chaplain

Fr. Ryan Lerner is Yale's 8th Catholic Chaplain.