FULL TEXT: Pope Francis' message to young people at UST

Below are the remarks in full of Pope Francis during his Encounter with the Youth event on Sunday at University of Santo Tomas, with parts spoken in Spanish translated into English.

 

Dear Young Friends,

 

When I spoke spontaneously, speak, I do it in Spanish. No? Because, I don’t know English language. May I do it? 

 

[Crowd: Yes!] 

 

Thank you very much!

 

He is Fr. Mark, a good translator. 

 

There is a sad news today. Yesterday as mass was about to start, a piece of scaffolding fell. And upon falling, it hit a young woman who was working in the area and she died. Her name is Kristel. She works for the organization and preparation for that very mass, and was 27 years old; young like yourselves. She worked for those Catholic Relief Services, a volunteer worker. 

 

I would like all of you, young like her, to pray for a moment in silence with me, and then we pray to Mama, Our Lady, in heaven.

 

Let us pray.

 

[Hail Mary...]

 

Let us also pray for her parents. She was the only daughter. Her mom is coming from Hong Kong, and her father has come to Manila to wait.

 

[Our Father...]

 

It is a joy for me to be with you this morning. I greet each of you from the heart, and I thank all those who made this meeting possible. During my visit to the Philippines, I wanted in a particular way to meet with young people, to listen to you and to talk with you. I want to express the love and the hopes of the Church for you. And I want to encourage you, as Christian citizens of this country, to offer yourselves passionately and honestly to the great work of renewing your society and helping to build a better world.

 

In a special way, I thank the young people who have offered words of welcome to me. To Jun and Leandro and Ricky, thank you very much.

 

And only a very small representation of females among you. Too little, eh?

 

Women have much to tell us in today’s society. Sometimes we’re too machistas, and we don’t allow room for the woman.

 

But women are capable of seeing things from a different angle from  us, a different eye. Women are able to pose questions that we men are not able to understand. Look out for this fact today. She, Glazelle, is the only one who has put a question for which there is no answer, and it she wasn’t even able to express it in words, but rather in tears.

 

So when the next pope comes, please, more girls, women, among the number. I thank you, Jun, that you’ve expressed yourself so bravely. The nucleus of your question as I said, also almost does not have a reply. 

 

Only when we too, can cry about the things that you said, can we come close to replying to that question. Why do children suffer so much? Why do children suffer? 

 

When the heart is able to ask itself and cry, then we can understand something. There is a worldly compassion, which is useless. You spoke something of this. It’s a compassion, moreover leads us to put hand in the pocket to give something, to the poor. If Christ had had that kind of that compassion, he would have walked by, just greeted three people, giving them something and moved on, But it’s only when Christ cried and was able to cry that he understood our lives. 

 

Dear boys, girls, young people, today’s world has a lack of capacity of knowing how to cry. The marginated people, we, those that are left to one side, are crying, those that are discarded, those are crying. 

 

But we don’t understand much about these people with these necessities. 

 

Certain realities in life we only see through eyes that are cleansed with tears. I invite each one here to ask yourselves, have I learned how to weep, to cry?

 

Have I learned how to weep for somebody who is left to one side, have I learned how to weep for somebody who has a drug problem, have I learned how to weep for somebody who has suffered abuse?

 

Unfortunately, there are those who cry because they want something else. This is the first thing I would like to say: Let us learn how to weep, as she has shown us today. Let us not forget this lesson, the great question of why so many children suffer, she did this crying, and the response we can make today is, let us learn, really learn, how to really weep, how to cry. 

 

Jesus in the Gospel, He cried, He cried for His dead friend, He cried in his heart, for the family that had lost its child, He cried when He saw the poor widow having to bury her son. He was moved to tears, to compassion, when He saw the multitudes of crowds without a pastor

 

If you don’t learn how to cry, you won’t learn how to be good Christians. This is a challenge. 

 

Jun and Glyzelle have posed this challenge to us today, and when they post this question to us, of why children suffer, why this tragedy occurs in life, our response must either be silence or words that is borne of our tears. 

 

Be courageous, please don’t be frightened of crying. 

 

Then came Leandro Santos II and his questions. 

 

He also posed good questions: the world of information. Today, with so many means of communications, we are overloaded with information. Is that bad? Not necessarily. 

 

It is good and it can help. But there is a real danger of living in a way of accumulating information. We have so much information. But maybe we don’t know what to do with that information. We run the risk of becoming museums of young people that have everything but without knowing what to do with them. We don’t need youth museums but we do need holy young people. 

 

You might ask me, Father, how do we become saints? This is another challenge, it is a challenge of love., which is the most important subject you have to learn in university. What is the most important subject you have to learn in life? To learn how to love. And this is the great challenge life offers you, to learn how to love. And not just acquiring information without knowing what to do with it, but through that love, that that information bear fruit. 

 

And for this the Gospel gives us a serene way to move forwards. To use three languages, of the mind, of the heart and of your hands, and the three  to use them in harmony, what you think you must feel and put into effect, your information comes down to your heart and you realize it in real work. And this harmoniously. Think what you feel and what you do. Feel what you think and what you do. Do what you think, and what you feel. The three languages. 

 

Can you repeat this? To think, to feel and to do. To think, to feel and to do.

 

[asks crowd to repeat]

 

To think, to feel and to do.

 

And all that, harmoniously.

 

Real love is about loving and letting ourselves be loved. Let yourselves to be loved, that is why it’s so difficult to come to perfect love to God, because we can love Him, but it’s also very important to let yourselves be loved by Him. Real love, opening ourselves to the love that wants to you, which causes a surprise in us.

 

If you only have information, then the element of surprise is gone.

 

Love opens you to surprise and is a surprise, because it presupposes dialogue between the two, of loving and being loved. And we say that God is a God of surprises, because he always loved us first, and he awaits us with surprise. God surprises us. Let us allow ourselves to be surprised by God.

 

Let us not have the psychology of a computer to think that we know it all. All the responses on a computer screen but no real surprise, and the challenge of love, God reveals himself through surprises. Let’s think of St. Matthew, he was a good financier and he let people down, because he imposed taxes on his own citizens, the Jews to give to the Romans, full of money, and charged taxes. 

 

But Jesus looks at him and says, follow Me. He couldn’t believe it. 

 

If you have time, go and see the picture that Caravaggio painted about the story. Jesus called him and those around him said, “This one? He has betrayed, he’s no good. And he holds money to himself!” But the surprise of being loved, overcomes him. It is this way. 

 

The day when Matthew left his home, said goodbye to his wife, he never thought he was going to come back without money, and worry and concerned about how to have such a big feast—to prepare that feast for Him who have loved him first, who had surprised Matthew. It’s something very special, more important than the money that Matthew had. 

 

Allow yourselves to be surprised by God and don’t be frightened of surprises. They shake the ground from underneath your feet and they make us unsure, but they move us forward in the right direction.

 

Real love leads you to spend yourselves in love, to leave your pockets open and empty. St. Francis died with his pockets empty, but with a very full heart. So, no young museums, wise young people. To be wise, use the three languages, to think well, feel well and do well. And to be wise, allow yourselves to be surprised by the love of God, and that’s a good life. Thank you. 

 

He who came with a good plan was Rikki, to see how he can go in life. With all the activities, the multiple facets that accompany young people, thank you, Rikki. Thank you for what you do and your friends. I’d like to ask you, Rikki, a question: You and your friends are going to give help, but do you allow yourselves to receive? Rikki, answer in your heart.

 

In the gospel we just heard, the beautiful phrase for me, which is the most important of all… “He looked at the young man, and He loved him. When you see young group of friends, Rikki and his friends, who love so much because they do things that are really good. But the most important phrase that Jesus says, “You lack one thing.” Let us listen to these words in silence: “You lack only one thing. You lack only one thing…” 

 

[Repeat] With us: “You lack only one thing. You lack only one thing.”

 

What is it that I lack? 

 

To all who Jesus loved so much, I ask you, do you allow others to give you, from their riches, to you that don’t have those riches? Sad to see that doctors of the law, in the time of Jesus, gave much to the people. Law? They taught them. But they never allowed the people to give them something. 

 

Jesus had to come to allow Himself to feel compassion, to be loved. How many young people among you are there like this? You know how to give and yet you haven’t yet learned how to receive. You lack only one thing: Become a beggar—to become a beggar. 

 

This is what you lack, to learn how to beg, and to those to whom we give. This isn’t easy to understand: To learn how to beg. To learn how to receive with humility. To learn to be evangelized by the poor, those that we help, those infirm, orphans, they have so much to offer us. 

 

"Have I learned to beg also for that? Or do I feel self sufficient and I’m only going to offer something and think that you have no need of anything?"

 

Do you know that you, too, are poor? Do you know your poverty and the need that you receive? Do you let yourselves be evangelized by those you serve? Let them give to you?

 

And this is what helps you mature in your commitment to give to others, to learn how to offer out your hand, from your very own poverty. 

 

There are some points that I have prepared, to learn how to love, and to learn how to be loved. There is a challenge of integrity.

 

This is not only because your country, more than many others, is likely to be seriously affected by climate change. It is a challenge to [have] concern for the environment. And finally, the challenge for the poor—] to love the poor, with the bishops, to ask in a very special way, for the poor. 

 

Do you think with the poor? Do you feel with the poor? Do you do something for the poor? Do you ask the poor that they might give you the wisdom that they have? 

 

This is what I wish to tell you all today. Sorry, I haven’t read what I prepared for you, but I’m consoled. Reality is superior to ideas. And the reality that you all have is superior to the paper in front of me. Thank you very much. Thank you.