One of the most powerful and
memorable reflections on Jesus’ identity took place on the night of August 19,
2000 during the evening prayer vigil at Tor Vergata on Rome’s outskirts during
World Youth Day of the Great Jubilee. I shall never forget that hot night, when
silence came over the crowd of over one million young people as Pope John Paul
II asked them the only question that matters:
“Who do you say that I am?”
The elderly Pope addressed his young
friends with those words that rang out over the seeming apocalyptic scene
before him:
What is the meaning of this
dialogue? Why does Jesus want to know what people think about him? Why does he
want to know what his disciples think about him? Jesus wants his disciples to become aware of
what is hidden in their own minds and hearts and to give voice to their
conviction. At the same time, however, he knows that the judgment they will
express will not be theirs alone, because it will reveal what God has poured
into their hearts by the grace of faith. The Holy Father continued:
This is what faith is all about! It
is the response of the rational and free human person to the word of the living
God. The questions that Jesus asks, the answers given by the Apostles, and
finally by Simon Peter, are a kind of examination on the maturity of the faith
of those who are closest to Christ.
It is Jesus in fact that you seek
when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find
satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who
provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for
compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he
who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try
to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with
your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be
grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and
patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and
more fraternal.
He concluded his memorable address
with these words:
Dear friends, at the dawn of the
Third Millennium I see in you the “morning watchmen” (Is 21:11-12). In the
course of the century now past young people like you were summoned to huge
gatherings to learn the ways of hatred; they were sent to fight against one
another. The various godless messianic systems that tried to take the place of
Christian hope have shown themselves to be truly horrendous. Today you have
come together to declare that in the new century you will not let yourselves be
made into tools of violence and destruction; you will defend peace, paying the
price in your person if need be. You will not resign yourselves to a world
where other human beings die of hunger, remain illiterate and have no work. You
will defend life at every moment of its development; you will strive with all
your strength to make this earth ever more livable for all people.
Who is this Jesus for us? This is indeed the only question that really
matters.
Pope St. John Paul II World Youth
Day, Rome 2000
A Prayer For Father’s Day
God our Father,
in your wisdom and love you made all
things.
Bless those fathers, who have taken
upon themselves
the responsibility of parenting.
Bless those who have lost a spouse
to death ... or divorce
who are parenting their children
alone.
Strengthen them by your love that
they may become
the loving, caring persons they are
meant to be.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.
AMEN.
I wish all Fathers in the parish a
Happy Father’s Day and continued blessings in all that you do!
I hope you enjoy your day!Fr. Phil
