POPE FRANCIS TO YOUTH:
IF YOU FEEL SOMETHING HEAVY IN YOUR HEART, DO NOT BE AFRAID!
GOD’S MERCY IS WAITING FOR YOU!
Dear brethren in Christ, below are Pope Francis’ words taken from his Message to the 31st World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland, and which are worth meditating in one’s personal prayer. Let us thank God for His Everlasting Love and Mercy which looks beyond our sins and failures an continues to have faith in us.
“When I was seventeen years old, it happened one day that, as I was about to go out with friends, I decided to stop into a church first. I met a priest there who inspired great confidence, and I felt the desire to open my heart in Confession. That meeting changed my life! I discovered that when we open our hearts with humility and transparency, we can contemplate God’s mercy in a very concrete way. I felt certain that, in the person of that priest, God was already waiting for me even before I took the step of entering that church.
WE KEEP LOOKING FOR GOD, BUT GOD IS THERE BEFORE US, ALWAYS LOOKING FOR US, AND HE FINDS US FIRST. Maybe one of you feels something weighing on your heart. YOU ARE THINKING: I DID THIS, I DID THAT…. DO NOT BE AFRAID! GOD IS WAITING FOR YOU! GOD IS A FATHER AND HE IS ALWAYS WAITING FOR US! IT IS SO WONDERFUL TO FEEL THE MERCIFUL EMBRACE OF THE FATHER IN THE SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION, TO DISCOVER THAT THE CONFESSIONAL IS A PLACE OF MERCY, AND TO ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE TOUCHED BY THE MERCIFUL LOVE OF THE LORD WHO ALWAYS FORGIVES US!
You, dear young man, dear young woman, have you ever felt the gaze of everlasting love upon you, a gaze that looks beyond your sins, limitations and failings, and continues to have faith in you and to look upon your life with hope? Do you realize how precious you are to God, who has given you everything out of love? Saint Paul tells us that “God proves his love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Do we really understand the power of these words?”
-Pope Francis, Message to the 31st World Youth Day 2016
Fr. Rolly A., priest of Opus Dei.