Bishop Paolo to the Young People During His Pastoral Visit to St. Mary's Dubai

Dubai.

During his pastoral visit to St. Mary's Dubai in May 2023, Bishop Paolo addressed the young people of the parish during the Eucharisitic Celebration on 22 May 2023.

Below is the full text of the homily.
 

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Dear young people,

First, let me express the joy of being with you here this evening to celebrate the Eucharist. It is a great joy to see you together in Church to meet Jesus alive and present among us.

The encounter with Jesus always leads us to meet each other and to move towards others, as the title of the next World Youth Day, which we will celebrate in August in Lisbon, reminds us. The encounter with Jesus always sets us in motion.

In this pastoral visit, the bishop wants to be only a humble sign that invites you to look towards and follow Jesus, the great friend and companion of all young people.

Thinking of you young people, who live in this part of the world and this Church so unique and singular, with so many different names, I find so many feelings and desires in my heart.

First, I would like to remind you that the Church is by nature the home of young people. None of you need to feel like a stranger. Jesus Christ loves you; he has given you his life and his love for great things, and he wants you as his friends to build a more human and fraternal world.

Dear friends, I want to announce and remind you that you are loved, you are wanted; your existence is not by accident but you are the result of a thought of God. You are necessary for the building up of the kingdom of God.

Each of you is unique and unrepeatable and is called to live on this earth in a unique and unrepeatable way. Each of you must discover your vocation and fulfil your mission.

I wish to recall the famous expression of Blessed Carlo Acutis, a young boy from my country, Italy. He reminded us that we are all born original; because we are wanted by God one by one. We are not the random and meaningless fruit of evolution.

God gives you existence in a unique way. We are all human beings, but none are alike. We come out of the heart of God as originals. But we risk living and dying like copies. Photocopies are those things that, if you lose one, just make another copy, and nobody notices anything. But you are not photocopies. You are people who are in the world because you have great things to accomplish.

We risk living like copies when we let ourselves be conditioned by everyone's mentality, the one that dominates the world, the individualistic and selfish society in which people remain isolated and think only of themselves.

We must rebel against this flat way of living life. We must develop a critical capacity in the face of the models of life that are spread.

Dear young people, ask yourself what you want. Why God created you? Ask yourself for whom you want to live and give your life. If you want to know who you are, you must understand to whom you belong and for whom you live. This is why I invite you to get in touch with your heart and listen to the great desires you have within you.

St. Augustine describes the human heart as an infinite desire that seeks satisfaction to its thirst and cannot find an answer in the things of this world. For this, he turns to God and says:

You, O Lord, have made us for yourself, and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in You. God is the fullness of joy, happiness, and love.

Don't settle for superficial things and easy successes. Have the courage to be different and to reject inauthentic life models that open the door to new forms of slavery. When one seeks only power, career, money, and pleasure, one becomes a slave to power, money, and pleasure. But we are called to be free and not enslaved people.

What does it mean to be free? First, it means being free to desire, free to dream and recognize that we are made for greater things. The greatest thing is taught by Jesus: Love and be loved. This is the secret of life reaching its fulfilment. Jesus conquered the world, as he tells us in today's Gospel because he loved. He gave his life out of love.

Dear young people, I invite you to find within yourselves the desire to love, the desire for beauty, happiness, goodness, and justice. May these intensely lived desires be the criteria that guide your life in the future.

In this way, you will discover many gifts and abilities in yourselves. Ask yourself: how can I use my talents for the good of my community, the good of the Church, and the good of humanity? How can we be protagonists of a more human World?

I invite you to avoid easy and superficial successes. Jesus, in today's Gospel, asks us not to be afraid when facing difficulties and even defeats. The Gospel passage we heard this evening brings back Jesus' discourse before he died for us on the cross. Jesus is aware that everyone will abandon him and betray him. Although he is faced with the cross, he is confident that he has already conquered the world. What conquers the world is love. Jesus is sure that he has conquered the world even before facing his passion and the cross because he knows the Father loves him and loves everyone.

How, then, to be young and protagonists in the life of the world and of the Church? To answer this question, we must use a wonderful word that the Bible uses to describe the adventure of life: you must discover your personal vocation and thus fulfil your mission.

We are called to life. No one can give life to himself. We receive life from God as a gift and as a task. If we are on this earth, we have a mission to accomplish. To discover the call that Jesus has for you, to understand how concretely to follow Jesus, you must listen to Jesus.

I invite you to dedicate time to prayer and reading the Bible. Read the document that the pope wrote for young people: Christus Vivit. Christ is alive and wants us alive. Follow Jesus and cultivate friendship with him.

With the help of priests or consecrated people or adult friends in the faith, you will discover your vocation and the meaning of your life, and you will be happy to find yourself loved by an infinite love from always, from eternity, and for eternity. You will be the protagonists of a new world.

Christ is alive among us and wants you alive. Be young people who deeply love life.
May the Lord bless you and give you peace and joy.