TO YOUTH
"Lastly, it is to you, young men and women of the world, that the Council wishes to address its final message. For it is you who are to receive the torch from the hands of your elders and to live in the world at the period of the most gigantic transformations ever realized in its history. It is you who receiving the best of the example of the teaching of your parents and your teachers, are to form the society of tomorrow. You will either save yourselves or you will perish with it.
For four years the Church has been working to rejuvenate her image in order to respond the better to the design of her Founder, the great Living One, the Christ who is eternally young. At the term of this imposing re-examination of life, she now turns to you. It is for you, youth, especially for you that the Church now comes through her Council to enkindle your light, the light which illuminates the future, your future.
The Church is anxious that this society that you are going to build up should respect the dignity, the liberty, and the rights of individuals. These individuals are you. The Church is particularly anxious that this society should allow free expansion to her treasure ever ancient and ever new, namely faith, and that your souls may be able to bask freely in its helpful light. She has confidence that you will find such strength and such joy that you will not be tempted, as were some of your elders, to yield to the seductions of egoistic or hedonistic philosophies or to those of despair and annihilation, and that in the face of atheism, a phenomenon of lassitude and old age, you will know how to affirm your faith in life and what gives meaning to it, that is to say, the certitude of the existence of a just and good God.
It is in the name of this God and of His Son, Jesus, that we exhort you to open your hearts to the dimensions of the world, to heed the appeal of your brothers, to place your youthful energies at their service. Fight against all egoism. Refuse to give free course to the instincts of violence and hatred which beget wars and all their train of miseries. Be generous, pure, respectful, and sincere, and build in enthusiasm a better world than your elders had.
The Church looks to you with confidence and with love. Rich with a long past ever living in her, and marching on toward human perfection in time and the ultimate destinies of history and of life, the Church is the real youth of the world. She possesses what constitutes the strength and the charm of youth, that is to say, the ability to rejoice with what is beginning, to give oneself unreservedly, to renew oneself and to set out again for new conquests. Look upon the Church and you will find in her the face of Christ, the genuine, humble, and wise Hero, the Prophet of truth and love, the Companion and Friend of youth. It is in the name of Christ that we salute you, that we exhort and bless you" (7 December 1965).
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"And you, beloved children, whose lot it is to promote learning under the magisterium of the Church, continue as you are doing to love and tend the noble poet whom We do not hesitate to call the most eloquent singer of the Christian idea. The more profit you draw from study of him the higher will be your culture, irradiated by the splendours of truth, and the stronger and more spontaneous your devotion to the Catholic Faith." (In Praeclara Summorum; Pope Benedict XV)
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Dear Beloved Brothers and Sweet Sisters,
I pray you use the messages by our dear leaders above as a supplement to nurture the thought and spirituality of our society. May we grow and exceed the expectations that our superiors and leaders have for us not because it pleases them but because it is right, fitting and good to do so. May you be blessed and may this society continue to grow greater in God while always serving each other with love.
Since today is the first of May, I wish you all to have a blessed feast day as you commemorate your roles as labourers in this world and remember to cherish on this day all the fruits of your labours that you have earned through divine grace. Let St.Joseph the worker lead you on and inspire you, through his life, to become better labourers in the vast vineyard of Christ.
And If you have time I earnestly bid you to read this: Laborem exercens
May the Lord bless you, keep you and shower you with His unending Love and abundant Joys.
St. Joseph pray for us and inspire us,
Ad Jesum per Mariam
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