Follow Jesus, heed the Beatitudes, Pope tells Dutch youth
July 01, 2014
In a message to the National Catholic Youth Festival of the Netherlands, Pope Francis called upon Dutch youth to follow Christ and heed the “revolutionary” message of the Beatitudes.
“Jesus offers a very different definition of what it means to be blessed; he shows us the way to authentic life and happiness, the way that he himself has taken,” Pope Francis wrote. “In fact, Jesus himself is the way!”
“Jesus loves each one of you, each one of us, with an infinite love!” the Pope continued. “Once we accept his love and salvation, once we contemplate Jesus in his poverty, his purity of heart, and his mercy, we will realize the beauty of our Christian vocation and we will not hesitate to set out on the way that leads to true happiness. I invite you, then, to set out on the exciting journey of true discipleship.”
“I challenge you to take God at his word,” he added. “Say no to an ephemeral, superficial and throwaway culture, a culture that assumes that you are not strong, that you are not capable of facing great challenges in your life. Think big! As Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati once said: ‘to live without faith, to have no heritage to uphold, to fail to struggle constantly to defend the truth: this is not living. It is scraping by. We should never just scrape by, but really live.’”
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