Priests urged to care... PERTH, WA: 4 -- 10 April, 1985
Number 2423
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"Christ yesterday and today the beginning and the end Alpha and Omega all time belongs to Him and all the ages to him glory and power through every age and for ever. Amen. "We may be confident that we shall share his victory over death and live with him for ever in God." (Easter Vigil Celebration)
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HELP YOUTH SAYS P
VATICAN CITY: The Church cannot remain on the sidelines of United Nations celebrations such as International Youth Year, Pope John Paul says in his Holy Thursday message outlining the attitude priests must have to youth.
Christ rises
"Initiatives such as the Year of the Aged, the Year of the Handicapped are at the heart of the Church's mission which is to be built up and grow as a community of believers," says the pope's traditional message to priests renewing their commitment on or before Holy Thursday. The pope says Jesus' attitude to the rich young man in the gospel must be the inspiration for priests in their approach to youth. He says the young man had easy access to Jesus who was someone to whome the young man could entrust his essential questions and someone from whom he could expect a true response. The priest must be distinguished by an accessibility similar to that of Christ, says the pope.
John Paul II
Discover benevolence
"Young people should discover in him the same openness, benevolence and availability to the problems troubling them.
Easter is the personal liturgy of light bursting through darkness, a personal experience of the waters of baptism, a personal passing through the symbolic waters as the victory given to each person through the Resurrection of Christ. Special Easter reading in Pathways of the Spirit pages 8, 9.
"Even when by temperament youth are a little shy or reserved the priest's attitude should help them to overcome the resistances which derive from that. "The priest's accessibility to young people means not only ease of contact with them but evoke trust as the confidant of their problems and questions of their spiritual life and conscience. "The priest in contact with youth should know how to listen and how to answer" and this should he the fruit of the priest's interior maturity." says Pope John Paul.
The priest has to have a sense of responsibility to the truth to the questioner. In the gospel incident, Jesus had in the young man's eyes, a special credibility and moral authority. "We must not be afraid of demanding much from the young," John Paul said. It can happen that one of them may go away saddened when unable to face some demand. "Sometimes the young must progress through SalVifiC sadness and gradually reach the truth that gives joy. "The young have a certain healthy instinct when it comes to a question of values. The young know that true good cannot be had cheaply. It must cost something."