Pope Francis met with a group of over 500 Italian youth on Wednesday and encouraged them to be “prophets of goodness” and to “go against the current” of the world which means to “make noise!”
Zenit News is reporting that the pope made these comments on August 28 during an unprepared address to youth from the Italian diocese of Piacenza-Bobbio who were on a Year of Faith pilgrimage to Rome.
He started out his talk by admitting that he had selfish reasons for wanting to address them: “Because I like being with you!”
He liked being with them because of the “promise of hope” young people carry in their hearts, he said, and because they are “craftsmen of the future.” They all have within themselves the capacity to do great things, despite the challenges the world presents.
“When a young person tells me: ‘What horrible times these are, Father, we can do nothing!’ Please! I’ll send him to a psychiatrist!” the Holy Father said.
He then focused on the three desires that young men and women carry in their hearts: beauty, goodness and truth.
Beauty is something they search for in music, theater, art.
Goodness is something they all like. Calling them “prophets of goodness,” he said, “You all like goodness, to be good. And this goodness is contagious, it helps others.”
Third is the desire for truth, something that cannot be possessed but experienced.
He concluded by encouraging the young people to accept the challenge of manifesting these three desires to the world and warning them about the temptations of drugs and alcohol which could impede them along the way.
“Go against the current of this civilization that is doing so much harm. Do you understand this? To go against the current; and this means to make noise, to go forward, but with the values of beauty, of goodness and of truth,” the Pope urged.
He asked them to turn to Our Lady, the Mother of beauty, goodness and truth, for her help.
“Let us ask her, who is in Heaven, who is our Mother, that she give us the grace of courage to go forward and against the current!”
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