VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI in Assisi: “It is time for young people like Francis to take Jesus seriously and build a personal relationship with Him. It is time to look at the history of the third millennium which has just started as a history more than ever in need of the leaven of the Gospel ”

Assisi (Agenzia Fides) - The Pope's last appointment in Assisi on Sunday 17 June was a meeting with young people in front of the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. “This is a special moment of my pilgrimage- the Pope said -. San Francis speaks to everyone but I know you young people find him particularly fascinating”. Recalling that Francis underwent his conversion after the first 25 years of his life, a period which he himself said he was "living in sin", the Pope said: “Could this not be said of many young people of our day? Today young people can easily go further than their own town in search of amusement. Many young people are involved in week-end events. It is also possible to ‘wander virtually on the Internet, with all sorts of information and contact. Sad to say many, indeed too many young people seek mental landscapes so futile and destructive in the artificial paradise of drug abuse. How can we deny that many young people and not so young, are tempted to follow the example of young Francis, before his conversion ?... The truth is that finite things can give glimpses of joy but only the Infinite can satisfy the heart. This was said by another great convert, Saint Augustine”.
From his biographies we learn that Francis was rather vain. “Today we speak about "taking care of one's image", or "building an image" - said Pope Benedict XVI -. To have a minimum of success, we need to accredit ourselves in the eyes of other with something new, original… often we are tempted by pride, an excessive desire for self assertion, egoism a desire to do better than others. When in reality to focus life on oneself is a mortal trap: we can only be ourselves if we open to love and love God and our brothers and sisters. Another aspect which impressed his contemporaries was Francis' ambition, his thirst for glory and adventure”.
Reflecting on some of the difficulties encountered in youth the Holy Father told the young people present that the truth is “Jesus Christ, the true Life, the compass for our life… The truth of Christ has been verified in the lives of the saints down through the centuries. The saints are the great light which passes through history which confirms: this it life, this is the way, this is the truth. So we must have the courage to say yes to Jesus Christ”. Benedict XVI then recalled that he had stopped to pray in front of the Crucified Christ who spoke to Francis: “I gazed at Christ. It is the image of Christ Crucified and Risen, the life of the Church, who speaks in us if we are attentive, as he spoke two thousand years ago to his apostles and eight hundred years ago to Francis. The Church lives continually of this encounter. Yes dear young people: we must let Christ come to meet us! We must listen to his Word. In Him there is not only a fascinating human person…there is much more: God made man in Him and therefore the only Saviour… people come to Assisi to learn from Saint Francis the secret to recognise Jesus Christ and experience his presence ”.
From the crucifix of St. Damian "he received the command to repair the house of Christ, in other words the Church. ... In the final analysis, that task was nothing other than the responsibility attributed by Christ to all the baptised. The Church grows and is repaired, above all, in the measure to which each of us converts and seeks sanctification. Like concentric circles, Francis' love for Jesus expands not only over the Church but over all things, seen in Christ and for Christ. Here are the origins of his 'Canticle of the Sun' in which his eye rests upon the splendour of the Creation" and which "even before being an exalted piece of poetry and an implicit invitation to respect creation, is a prayer. Francis' commitment to peace is also to be seen as a form of prayer. This
aspect of his life is of great contemporary importance in a world which has so much need of peace yet does not manage to achieve it. Francis was a man of peace and an architect of peace. He showed as much in the mildness with his meeting with men of other faiths, while never remaining silent about his own faith, as it was seen in his meeting with the Sultan”.
The Pope concluded: “Dear young people your numerous presence here shows how the figure of Francis speaks to your hearts. I willingly hand you his message, but above all I hand you his life and his witness. It is time for young people like Francis to take Jesus seriously and build a personal relationship with Him. It is time to look at the history of the third millennium which has just started as a history more than ever in need of the leaven of the Gospel”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 19/6/2007; righe 58, parole 927)