How to find authentic friendships?
‘We live in a culture that belongs to us and without us realising it is shaping us; it is marked by technology, especially in the field of social networks,’ says Dulce María, 23, from Mexico, in Spanish. ‘We often delude ourselves that we have many friends and create bonds of closeness while we increasingly experience many forms of loneliness. Widely connected, but often lacking “true and lasting” bonds, young people wonder how to find authentic friendships ‘and genuine love that open up true hope.’
Human relationships can be ‘sincere, generous and true’ if they reflect the ‘intense bond with Jesus’, ‘truth that does not deceive’, love that gives hope, is Leo's answer, who first explains how ‘indispensable’ for everyone are ‘relationships with other people’ and the ‘fundamental role’ of ‘culture’. Each ‘contains both noble words and vulgar words, both values and errors, which we must learn to recognise’, warns the Pope, clarifying that ‘truth’ in practice ‘joins ords to things, names to faces’ while ‘lies’ separate ‘these aspects, generating confusion and misunderstanding’.
‘When the instrument dominates man, man becomes an instrument: only sincere relationships and stable bonds make good life stories grow. Beloved, every person naturally desires this good life, as lungs tend to air, but how difficult it is to find it! Centuries ago, St Augustine captured the deep desire of our heart, it is the desire of every human heart,’ Leo XIV said.
The Pope recalled that the Bishop of Hippo also ‘went through a stormy youth’, but that ‘he was not content, he did not silence the cry of his heart’. ‘He sought the truth, the truth that does not deceive, the beauty that does not pass away’ and ‘he found sincere friendship, a love capable of giving hope’ in Jesus Christ, ‘he built his future’ by following him. So much so, then, that he could say: ‘No friendship is faithful except in Christ. It is in Him alone that it can be happy and eternal.’ And again: ‘He who loves God in his friend truly loves his friend.’
And the Pope then adds in passing: ‘Love one another! Love one another in Christ! Know how to see Jesus in others.’ And he dwells again on friendship, which ‘can truly change the world’. ‘Friendship is a road to peace.’
The fear of making choices
Gaia, nineteen years old, Italian, is the spokesperson for the dreams, hopes and doubts of all young people, and poses the problem of today’s ‘climate of uncertainty’ that leads to ‘postponing’ ‘important decisions. ‘We know that choosing is tantamount to giving up something, and this blocks us’. Hence the doubt: how can we ‘be courageous and live the adventure of true freedom, making radical and meaningful choices’?
Leo specifies that it is love that gives the courage to choose: ‘Choosing is learnt through the trials of life, and first of all by remembering that we have been chosen. We received life for free, without choosing it! At the origin of ourselves was not our own decision, but a love that wanted us. In the course of our existence, the one who helps us to recognise and renew this grace in the choices we are called upon to make is truly a friend'.
And while it is true that ‘choosing also means renouncing something else’, which ‘sometimes blocks us’, ‘the love of God is what makes us firm. Jesus ‘loved us with his whole self, saving the world and showing us that the gift of life is the way to fulfil our person.’
So if one bases one’s life on Christ ‘fear then gives way to hope’ and one can recognise ‘His faithfulness in the words of those who truly love, because they have been truly loved’.
How to meet the Risen Lord?
Finally, in the third question, Will, 20 years old, who arrived from the United States, reflects on the inner life to which young people feel attracted, on the ‘call to beauty and goodness as a source of truth’, felt ‘deep down’, and on the ‘value of silence’, which ‘fascinates, even if it instils fear at times because of the sense of emptiness’. Faced with this last contradiction, ‘how can one truly encounter the Risen Lord’ in life ‘and be sure of his presence even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties’?
The Pontiff's invitation is to invoke God while seeking the good, praying to Him: ‘Stay with us, because without You we cannot do the good we desire’. Christ is encountered in the Church, the Pope continues, ‘in the communion of those who sincerely seek him’. And it is God who ‘gathers us to form a community’, ‘a community of believers who support one another’, ready then to bring the Good News to others.
And it is again St Augustine whom Leo quotes to explain the restlessness of young people - ‘You made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.... Lord, I seek you... and to invoke you is to believe in you’, indicating to the young people to invoke God to meet Him also in their own ‘limits’ and their own ’frailties", to continue the dialogue with Him every time they raise their eyes to the Crucifix.
At the end of the Pope's conversation with the young people, the Gospel was proclaimed, then followed by Eucharistic adoration, a particularly intense moment during which a prayerful silence fell on the Tor Vergata esplanade. This was interspersed with songs and reflections, in an atmosphere of great recollection. After the repositioning and the final blessing, the Pontiff concluded by giving a smile to all the young people: ‘Please rest a little’.
