WYD 2008 Catechesis for Vietnamese: “Sent to be my witnesses”
(Catechis for Vietnamese by Bishop Joseph Đang Đức Ngân, bishop of Lang Son, on 18 July, 2008 at Whitlam Centre Liverpool).
Dear young friends,
After two days in the World Youth Day Catechesis program, today we gather here on the last day to share and learn on the topic “Sent to be my witnesses”.
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).
Today’s theme is a good opportunity for us to have a good retrospect on our journey of faith as young people. Should Jesus Christ ask us right now the same question He asked the Apostles: “Who do you think that I am?” how do you respond? Is it easy for you to have an immediate reply? Probably you and I will have a lovely answer: we will ask the Holy Spirit for the right one: “You are Christ, Son of God”. Having said that, we would like to dig into our conviction: Who is the Holy Spirit? Why He helps us to have a right answer?
During the last two days, probably you already learned from the bishops that the Holy Spirit is the God of Truth, who leads us in our journey of faith. We, despite various duties in our life, share the same faith, same language, are called to open our heart generously to listen to Him, to be witnesses of our faith, our love, and our services.
Let us be at peace listening and pondering why the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of mission.
1. The Holy Spirit: the language of faith, love, and service.
On the day of the Pentecost in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit came down upon the praying disciples of Jesus Christ and Mary. On that very day, the Church was introduced to the world and began her mission. A “new People” was born from the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a new creation where every one shared the same language, the same conviction, and the same trust on the creative love of God. In “Dominum et vivificantem” (Encyclical Letter on the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church), Pope John Paul II wrote:
The era of the Church began with the "coming," that is to say with the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, together with Mary, the Lord's Mother. The time of the Church began at the moment when the promises and predictions that so explicitly referred to the Counselor, the Spirit of truth, began to be fulfilled in complete power and clarity upon the Apostles, thus determining the birth of the Church... the Holy Spirit assumed the invisible-but in a certain way "perceptible"-guidance of those who after the departure of the Lord Jesus felt profoundly that they had been left orphans. With the coming of the Spirit they felt capable of fulfilling the mission entrusted to them (25).
At that moment, the Apostles and disciples received the grace of the Holy Spirit, and as servants of Good News, they were called to be missionaries with the language of faith, of love, and of sincere service. The Holy Spirit empowered them with strength and capability, and, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they began to fulfil the mission entrusted to them. The crowd in front of them was surprised and bewildered when they saw the disciples speaking their own native languages. The image of Babel tower comes to our mind: when the children of earth cannot figure out the common point of faith and love in service, they see nothing but envy and jealousy. Then comes the confusion of language, so confused that they cannot understand each other. This ultimately leads to diversity, unrest, and dispersion. If the Babel tower is a symbol of confusion and dispersion, then the Holy Spirit is the symbol of understanding and union. In the Holy Spirit the confusion of language is no longer a barrier as we all listen to the proclamation of Good News on behalf of Christ. The union in faith and in love helps us overcome the barriers of language and culture and allows us to listen to the whisper of the language of heart in the world. In the Holy Spirit, from Jesus Christ, the Apostles, and the Church, a new language of truth and love have been continually spreading all over the world.
My dear young friends, you are witnessing that. Despite difficulties to understand your mother tongue, as you are living overseas and integrated well into the native culture where you are living, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, you come here full of faith, love, and the strength of youth so that altogether we can present to the world and to ourselves the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord, in a language of faith and love.
2. The Holy Spirit: the principal agent of mission.
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).
It was the strength endowed on them by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost with which Peter and other Apostles had the courage to publicly proclaim the Resurrection and the Glorious Victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was the very moment Peter and other Apostles began the mission entrusted on them by Jesus Chirst: “You are my witnesses”. The descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles on the day of Pentecost is an extraordinary event on the first day the Church reached out to the world. However, the Holy Spirit did not stop pouring out His grace on the Church since that day. It is just the beginning of a long-term process in which the Holy Spirit has continually supported the Apostles and disciples on their mission to proclaim the Good News to the world. The power of the Holy Spirit in them was so strong that their boldness, even in persecution and in jails, surprised the Jewish assembly who perceived them to be uneducated, ordinary men. It was a great transformation in the Apostles who had thought that they were so strong but soon found in the Passion of Christ their faith so shaken that they betrayed, denied and ran away from their Master. The Christ of Resurrection transformed them through the Holy Spirit to be new people that could help to transform the world.
There were so many works of the Holy Spirit in the mission of the early Church: the union in the brotherhood and love, they were so united that they agreed with each other in everything, they had all things in common, they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one's need; secondly, the communion in teaching of the Apostles; thirdly, the communal life in the breaking of the bread; and the communion in the prayers. That spirit of communion made people say: “Look how they love each other”.
When we, young people, live up our faith in our parish, our community, our family we will experience a call from Jesus Christ: “Love one another as I love you”. How to love is always a challenging question of faith that we need to discover. Love as instructed by Jesus Christ requires an active commitment to the world, to the environment where we are living with an aspiration for freedom, a thirst for real love and authentic faith, and a desire to beautify the surface of the earth. There are many young successful people who have been eagerly seeking for the truth and have arrived. But, there are also many who disorient their ideals and aspirations and ultimately fail as they try seeking a way in which God is excluded from their reason. There are so many who jump from failures to disappointment and finally make wrong decisions in their life. Look at the Apostles. They were not old and so young in their faith. They themselves had thought that they could change the world solely by their own ability, and only discovered their weakness when confronted with earthly power and defiance. However, they knew how to gaze upon The Resurrected Christ, and Christ bestowed the Holy Spirit on His disciples to transform them into new people who can recognise Him, His calls, and His plans in order to carry out his works.
3. The Holy Spirit and Youth Today.
Let us recall the appeal from Pope Benedict XVI in his homily at the closing Mass of the World Youth Day in Cologne (Germany) on 21st of August, 2005:
“Help people to discover the true star which points out the way to us: Jesus Christ! Let us seek to know him better and better, so as to be able to guide others to him with conviction.
This is why love for Sacred Scripture is so important, and in consequence, it is important to know the faith of the Church which opens up for us the meaning of Scripture”
You will be the owner of the future, and the hope of the Church. In the wake of so many tendencies, movement, and idols of our times, you are not allowed to make mistake on criteria that guide our life. The Gospel is the only Light that guides you in critical decisions.
The Pope’s appeal helps young people who are seeking for the truth. We were baptised in the Holy Spirit and were called to live our lives according to the teaching of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit does not only speak when we pray. He always is with us in the course of history of the world and of our lives. He always is there regardless whether we recognise Him or not. In the letter to Philippians, St. Paul writes:
“Brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you” (Pl 4:8-9)
The Holy Spirit always accompanies the world and each of us to guide us to recognise the call of Lord in the salvic plan of God.
Should you want to ask the Holy Spirit what He wants you to cooperate in His strength and power, let us ponder deeper.
3.1 The Holy Spirit and the language of faith:
You may wonder: what is the language of faith? Let us look at the journey of faith of the Apostles. They chose Jesus Christ and dared to leave everything behind to follow Him. Even so, St. Peter kept asking Jesus for more faith: “Please give us more faith”, he asked.
Faith, therefore, is a grace that God bestow on us for our searching aspiration. Faith must be expressed in the language of God, the language that the Holy Spirit granted to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, the same language we are asking for, the language of the Word of God, the voice of the Lord, the Grace from God to help us believe, love and worship Him. We pray that in our earthly journey, the language of faith will transform us on the same way as it did in the Apostles, and grant us the strength to fulfil our mission: live up our faith in our society, in our Church. Before ascending to Heaven, Jesus Himself consolidated the faith of the Apostles, helped them to understand Sacred Scripture, and entrusted to the Apostles the mission to proclaim the Good News to all nations. The mission that Jesus entrusted to the Apostles is also the mission that Jesus entrusts to us today: “You are witnesses of these things” (Lk 24:48). The language of faith is the most living expression of the power of the salvic love in which each Christian is called to follow Christ, to let Him transform self in to witnesses of the Salvic Good News for the world.
3.2 The Holy Spirit is the language of love:
When Jesus Christ said: “No other love is higher than the love in which one offer his own life for whom he loves,” probably the disciples did not understand fully these words. But once they witnessed the Passion, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, they began to appreciate and through the Holy Spirit they were transformed to live up bravely the language of love. From the men full of fears, the Apostles became joyful when they were persecuted for Christ's sake. It is the love that is higher than one’s life, a love that has its orientation towards God. The language of love from the Holy Spirit is not the misuse of freedom in the love between man and woman, nor sexual love, fake love or love of exchange. It is the real love, self-offering love as Jesus did for each of us. That is the love, you, my young friends, can offer to God, His Church, and the world.
3.3 The Holy Spirit is the language of service:
You may wonder: how should I serve? Christians reach out to the world not with the inferiority complex but with the spirit of service. This is the power of liberation and salvation.
In the Book of Acts, when St. Peter and St. John arrived at the gate of the temple of Bethsaida, a beggar asked them for alms, St. Peter told him: “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, rise and walk.” That image is the answer for you, my dear young friends, gathering here from all around the world, to be united, to love as called by Jesus and His Holy Spirit. We have neither silver nor gold, but we do have a young heart full of enthusiasm, love, energy, faith and the aspiration of goodness. With the grace from God we can transform the world.
But be careful! Let us listen to our dear Pope John Paul II: “Be aware of the temptation to mix up between the renewal of the Church and the revitalization of society. More and more people believe that the society must be built on the wealthness”. We need to remember that in our journey of faith and in our daily lives. In the same direction, the Vietnamese Conference of Catholic Bishops (VCCB) wrote in its pastoral letter in 2000: “As Jesus assimilates Himself to the poor, the hungry, the disabled, the marginal (cf. Mt 25:31-46), let us commit ourselves to practical services for the wretched, and the poor. They are children wishing to receive education who need our supports in order to keep studying. They are women mistreated in family and abused in the society whose dignity must be respected. They are abandoned elder people who need to be cared and comforted. They are ethnical minorities who need to be treated fairly and granted opportunities to develop in all aspects. They are peasants left their villages for cities who need to be defended and protected. They are victims of social crimes who need to be understood and helped to return to normal lives. They are victims of natural disasters who need aids to overcome their challenges. Serving them is not only the requirement of human fellowship but also of the Christian love (cf Rm 13:8). Each time we did that, we did for Christ Himself” (cf. Mt 25:40).
My dear young friends,
In conclusion, I invite you to listen to our beloved Pope Benedict XVI:
“In particular, I assure you that the Spirit of Jesus today is inviting you young people to be bearers of the good news of Jesus to your contemporaries. The difficulty that adults undoubtedly find in approaching the sphere of youth in a comprehensible and convincing way could be a sign with which the Spirit is urging you young people to take this task upon yourselves. You know the ideals, the language, and also the wounds, the expectations, and at the same time the desire for goodness felt by your contemporaries. This opens up the vast world of young people’s emotions, work, education, expectations, and suffering... Each one of you must have the courage to promise the Holy Spirit that you will bring one young person to Jesus Christ in the way you consider best, knowing how to “give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence” (cf. 1 Pet 3:15).
In order to achieve this goal, my dear friends, you must be holy and you must be missionaries since we can never separate holiness from mission (cf. Redemptoris Missio, 90). Do not be afraid to become holy missionaries like Saint Francis Xavier who travelled through the Far East proclaiming the Good News until every ounce of his strength was used up, or like Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus who was a missionary even though she never left the Carmelite convent. Both of these are “Patrons of the Missions”. Be prepared to put your life on the line in order to enlighten the world with the truth of Christ; to respond with love to hatred and disregard for life; to proclaim the hope of the risen Christ in every corner of the earth.” (Message for the World Youth Day 2008).
We invoke the Holy Spirit that God will gift each one of us, especially the young ones, “a new Pentecost” in our hearts, so that when we return to our daily duties, we bring with us a fire of the Holy Spirit in our heart, an enthusiasm to contribute to the local Church, to the society we are living with union, love, and God’s grace.
May you be new missionaries who proclaim our Lord’s Holy Name with full of enthusiasm, faith, love and the service of Vietnamese youths in each section of lives in the spirit described
in the VCCB’s pastoral letter in year 2000 “In the joyfulness of being loved and saved, let we reach out eagerly to the world to be witnesses of God’s love: Let us bring the Good News to the poor, hope to the hopeless, faith to the unbelieved, happiness to the unhappy, love to the excluded, reconciliation to the hatred, liberation to those with inferiority complex, respect to the unrespected, and the salvation to all people.”
May the Holy Spirit be with you always. May He be the strength, the love, the faith, the energy in the mission of youth today. Thanks for your listening.
(Translated in to English by VietCatholic Network)
(Catechis for Vietnamese by Bishop Joseph Đang Đức Ngân, bishop of Lang Son, on 18 July, 2008 at Whitlam Centre Liverpool).
Dear young friends,
After two days in the World Youth Day Catechesis program, today we gather here on the last day to share and learn on the topic “Sent to be my witnesses”.
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).
Today’s theme is a good opportunity for us to have a good retrospect on our journey of faith as young people. Should Jesus Christ ask us right now the same question He asked the Apostles: “Who do you think that I am?” how do you respond? Is it easy for you to have an immediate reply? Probably you and I will have a lovely answer: we will ask the Holy Spirit for the right one: “You are Christ, Son of God”. Having said that, we would like to dig into our conviction: Who is the Holy Spirit? Why He helps us to have a right answer?
During the last two days, probably you already learned from the bishops that the Holy Spirit is the God of Truth, who leads us in our journey of faith. We, despite various duties in our life, share the same faith, same language, are called to open our heart generously to listen to Him, to be witnesses of our faith, our love, and our services.
Let us be at peace listening and pondering why the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of mission.
1. The Holy Spirit: the language of faith, love, and service.
On the day of the Pentecost in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit came down upon the praying disciples of Jesus Christ and Mary. On that very day, the Church was introduced to the world and began her mission. A “new People” was born from the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a new creation where every one shared the same language, the same conviction, and the same trust on the creative love of God. In “Dominum et vivificantem” (Encyclical Letter on the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church), Pope John Paul II wrote:
The era of the Church began with the "coming," that is to say with the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, together with Mary, the Lord's Mother. The time of the Church began at the moment when the promises and predictions that so explicitly referred to the Counselor, the Spirit of truth, began to be fulfilled in complete power and clarity upon the Apostles, thus determining the birth of the Church... the Holy Spirit assumed the invisible-but in a certain way "perceptible"-guidance of those who after the departure of the Lord Jesus felt profoundly that they had been left orphans. With the coming of the Spirit they felt capable of fulfilling the mission entrusted to them (25).
At that moment, the Apostles and disciples received the grace of the Holy Spirit, and as servants of Good News, they were called to be missionaries with the language of faith, of love, and of sincere service. The Holy Spirit empowered them with strength and capability, and, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they began to fulfil the mission entrusted to them. The crowd in front of them was surprised and bewildered when they saw the disciples speaking their own native languages. The image of Babel tower comes to our mind: when the children of earth cannot figure out the common point of faith and love in service, they see nothing but envy and jealousy. Then comes the confusion of language, so confused that they cannot understand each other. This ultimately leads to diversity, unrest, and dispersion. If the Babel tower is a symbol of confusion and dispersion, then the Holy Spirit is the symbol of understanding and union. In the Holy Spirit the confusion of language is no longer a barrier as we all listen to the proclamation of Good News on behalf of Christ. The union in faith and in love helps us overcome the barriers of language and culture and allows us to listen to the whisper of the language of heart in the world. In the Holy Spirit, from Jesus Christ, the Apostles, and the Church, a new language of truth and love have been continually spreading all over the world.
My dear young friends, you are witnessing that. Despite difficulties to understand your mother tongue, as you are living overseas and integrated well into the native culture where you are living, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, you come here full of faith, love, and the strength of youth so that altogether we can present to the world and to ourselves the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord, in a language of faith and love.
2. The Holy Spirit: the principal agent of mission.
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).
It was the strength endowed on them by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost with which Peter and other Apostles had the courage to publicly proclaim the Resurrection and the Glorious Victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was the very moment Peter and other Apostles began the mission entrusted on them by Jesus Chirst: “You are my witnesses”. The descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles on the day of Pentecost is an extraordinary event on the first day the Church reached out to the world. However, the Holy Spirit did not stop pouring out His grace on the Church since that day. It is just the beginning of a long-term process in which the Holy Spirit has continually supported the Apostles and disciples on their mission to proclaim the Good News to the world. The power of the Holy Spirit in them was so strong that their boldness, even in persecution and in jails, surprised the Jewish assembly who perceived them to be uneducated, ordinary men. It was a great transformation in the Apostles who had thought that they were so strong but soon found in the Passion of Christ their faith so shaken that they betrayed, denied and ran away from their Master. The Christ of Resurrection transformed them through the Holy Spirit to be new people that could help to transform the world.
There were so many works of the Holy Spirit in the mission of the early Church: the union in the brotherhood and love, they were so united that they agreed with each other in everything, they had all things in common, they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one's need; secondly, the communion in teaching of the Apostles; thirdly, the communal life in the breaking of the bread; and the communion in the prayers. That spirit of communion made people say: “Look how they love each other”.
When we, young people, live up our faith in our parish, our community, our family we will experience a call from Jesus Christ: “Love one another as I love you”. How to love is always a challenging question of faith that we need to discover. Love as instructed by Jesus Christ requires an active commitment to the world, to the environment where we are living with an aspiration for freedom, a thirst for real love and authentic faith, and a desire to beautify the surface of the earth. There are many young successful people who have been eagerly seeking for the truth and have arrived. But, there are also many who disorient their ideals and aspirations and ultimately fail as they try seeking a way in which God is excluded from their reason. There are so many who jump from failures to disappointment and finally make wrong decisions in their life. Look at the Apostles. They were not old and so young in their faith. They themselves had thought that they could change the world solely by their own ability, and only discovered their weakness when confronted with earthly power and defiance. However, they knew how to gaze upon The Resurrected Christ, and Christ bestowed the Holy Spirit on His disciples to transform them into new people who can recognise Him, His calls, and His plans in order to carry out his works.
3. The Holy Spirit and Youth Today.
Let us recall the appeal from Pope Benedict XVI in his homily at the closing Mass of the World Youth Day in Cologne (Germany) on 21st of August, 2005:
“Help people to discover the true star which points out the way to us: Jesus Christ! Let us seek to know him better and better, so as to be able to guide others to him with conviction.
This is why love for Sacred Scripture is so important, and in consequence, it is important to know the faith of the Church which opens up for us the meaning of Scripture”
You will be the owner of the future, and the hope of the Church. In the wake of so many tendencies, movement, and idols of our times, you are not allowed to make mistake on criteria that guide our life. The Gospel is the only Light that guides you in critical decisions.
The Pope’s appeal helps young people who are seeking for the truth. We were baptised in the Holy Spirit and were called to live our lives according to the teaching of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit does not only speak when we pray. He always is with us in the course of history of the world and of our lives. He always is there regardless whether we recognise Him or not. In the letter to Philippians, St. Paul writes:
“Brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you” (Pl 4:8-9)
The Holy Spirit always accompanies the world and each of us to guide us to recognise the call of Lord in the salvic plan of God.
Should you want to ask the Holy Spirit what He wants you to cooperate in His strength and power, let us ponder deeper.
3.1 The Holy Spirit and the language of faith:
You may wonder: what is the language of faith? Let us look at the journey of faith of the Apostles. They chose Jesus Christ and dared to leave everything behind to follow Him. Even so, St. Peter kept asking Jesus for more faith: “Please give us more faith”, he asked.
Faith, therefore, is a grace that God bestow on us for our searching aspiration. Faith must be expressed in the language of God, the language that the Holy Spirit granted to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, the same language we are asking for, the language of the Word of God, the voice of the Lord, the Grace from God to help us believe, love and worship Him. We pray that in our earthly journey, the language of faith will transform us on the same way as it did in the Apostles, and grant us the strength to fulfil our mission: live up our faith in our society, in our Church. Before ascending to Heaven, Jesus Himself consolidated the faith of the Apostles, helped them to understand Sacred Scripture, and entrusted to the Apostles the mission to proclaim the Good News to all nations. The mission that Jesus entrusted to the Apostles is also the mission that Jesus entrusts to us today: “You are witnesses of these things” (Lk 24:48). The language of faith is the most living expression of the power of the salvic love in which each Christian is called to follow Christ, to let Him transform self in to witnesses of the Salvic Good News for the world.
3.2 The Holy Spirit is the language of love:
When Jesus Christ said: “No other love is higher than the love in which one offer his own life for whom he loves,” probably the disciples did not understand fully these words. But once they witnessed the Passion, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, they began to appreciate and through the Holy Spirit they were transformed to live up bravely the language of love. From the men full of fears, the Apostles became joyful when they were persecuted for Christ's sake. It is the love that is higher than one’s life, a love that has its orientation towards God. The language of love from the Holy Spirit is not the misuse of freedom in the love between man and woman, nor sexual love, fake love or love of exchange. It is the real love, self-offering love as Jesus did for each of us. That is the love, you, my young friends, can offer to God, His Church, and the world.
3.3 The Holy Spirit is the language of service:
You may wonder: how should I serve? Christians reach out to the world not with the inferiority complex but with the spirit of service. This is the power of liberation and salvation.
In the Book of Acts, when St. Peter and St. John arrived at the gate of the temple of Bethsaida, a beggar asked them for alms, St. Peter told him: “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, rise and walk.” That image is the answer for you, my dear young friends, gathering here from all around the world, to be united, to love as called by Jesus and His Holy Spirit. We have neither silver nor gold, but we do have a young heart full of enthusiasm, love, energy, faith and the aspiration of goodness. With the grace from God we can transform the world.
But be careful! Let us listen to our dear Pope John Paul II: “Be aware of the temptation to mix up between the renewal of the Church and the revitalization of society. More and more people believe that the society must be built on the wealthness”. We need to remember that in our journey of faith and in our daily lives. In the same direction, the Vietnamese Conference of Catholic Bishops (VCCB) wrote in its pastoral letter in 2000: “As Jesus assimilates Himself to the poor, the hungry, the disabled, the marginal (cf. Mt 25:31-46), let us commit ourselves to practical services for the wretched, and the poor. They are children wishing to receive education who need our supports in order to keep studying. They are women mistreated in family and abused in the society whose dignity must be respected. They are abandoned elder people who need to be cared and comforted. They are ethnical minorities who need to be treated fairly and granted opportunities to develop in all aspects. They are peasants left their villages for cities who need to be defended and protected. They are victims of social crimes who need to be understood and helped to return to normal lives. They are victims of natural disasters who need aids to overcome their challenges. Serving them is not only the requirement of human fellowship but also of the Christian love (cf Rm 13:8). Each time we did that, we did for Christ Himself” (cf. Mt 25:40).
My dear young friends,
In conclusion, I invite you to listen to our beloved Pope Benedict XVI:
“In particular, I assure you that the Spirit of Jesus today is inviting you young people to be bearers of the good news of Jesus to your contemporaries. The difficulty that adults undoubtedly find in approaching the sphere of youth in a comprehensible and convincing way could be a sign with which the Spirit is urging you young people to take this task upon yourselves. You know the ideals, the language, and also the wounds, the expectations, and at the same time the desire for goodness felt by your contemporaries. This opens up the vast world of young people’s emotions, work, education, expectations, and suffering... Each one of you must have the courage to promise the Holy Spirit that you will bring one young person to Jesus Christ in the way you consider best, knowing how to “give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence” (cf. 1 Pet 3:15).
In order to achieve this goal, my dear friends, you must be holy and you must be missionaries since we can never separate holiness from mission (cf. Redemptoris Missio, 90). Do not be afraid to become holy missionaries like Saint Francis Xavier who travelled through the Far East proclaiming the Good News until every ounce of his strength was used up, or like Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus who was a missionary even though she never left the Carmelite convent. Both of these are “Patrons of the Missions”. Be prepared to put your life on the line in order to enlighten the world with the truth of Christ; to respond with love to hatred and disregard for life; to proclaim the hope of the risen Christ in every corner of the earth.” (Message for the World Youth Day 2008).
We invoke the Holy Spirit that God will gift each one of us, especially the young ones, “a new Pentecost” in our hearts, so that when we return to our daily duties, we bring with us a fire of the Holy Spirit in our heart, an enthusiasm to contribute to the local Church, to the society we are living with union, love, and God’s grace.
May you be new missionaries who proclaim our Lord’s Holy Name with full of enthusiasm, faith, love and the service of Vietnamese youths in each section of lives in the spirit described
in the VCCB’s pastoral letter in year 2000 “In the joyfulness of being loved and saved, let we reach out eagerly to the world to be witnesses of God’s love: Let us bring the Good News to the poor, hope to the hopeless, faith to the unbelieved, happiness to the unhappy, love to the excluded, reconciliation to the hatred, liberation to those with inferiority complex, respect to the unrespected, and the salvation to all people.”
May the Holy Spirit be with you always. May He be the strength, the love, the faith, the energy in the mission of youth today. Thanks for your listening.
(Translated in to English by VietCatholic Network)