They say it with words, with testimonies, with music. Friendship, the company, the proximity, the courage and the ability to act. Dragged, among others, also by the rhythm of Matt Maher and The Sun, dance and applaud, while the leakage of Tor Vergata is gradually filling up. Almost double the five hundred thousand expected The lawn close to Calatrava sails. Those same spaces that saw, in 2000, the young people of then confront John Paul II, today see the children of that generation continue to confront each other with faith and with God. I Young people concern the images of 25 years ago transmitted on the maxi screen and also listen to the encouragement of Pope Francis, the pontiff who summoned them here, for the Jubilee of hope and who, almost all of them, went to greet to Santa Maria Maggiore before gathering in Tor Vergata. They wait, praying and having fun, Pope Leo. They call them the “Papa-Makers”, because, singing in all the languages, like the young people who preceded them, “this is the Pope’s youth”, have a new way of communicating. They movie, they “post”, “tag”. But they are also concrete. They embrace each other, look in the eyes, they talk.
Pope Leone also touched them, in the morning he saw The tragic death of Pascale Rafico, The eighteen year old Egyptian, cardiopathic, who suddenly died during the pilgrimage. “The sadness that death brings to all of us is something very human and very understandable, above all being so far from home and on an occasion like this in which we really get together to celebrate our faith with joy,” said the Pope meeting his friends and pilgrimage companions still in shock.
“We are suddenly reminded us,” he underlined trying to alleviate their pain, “that our life is not superficial, nor do we have control over our life, nor do we know, as Jesus himself says, neither the day nor the time when, for some reason, our earthly life ends”.
And therefore, he insisted, “while we celebrate this jubilee year of hope, we are reminded us in a very powerful way as our faith in Jesus Christ must be part of what we are, how we live, how we appreciate and respect each other, and above all how we continue to go on despite such painful experiences”.
Even Sant’Agostino says that “when someone dies it is naturally very human and very natural to cry, feel that pain, feel the loss of someone who is dear to us, and yet he also says: do not cry as the pagans do, because we too have seen Jesus Christ die on the cross and rise from the dead. And it is our hope in the resurrection, the ultimate source of our hope, and we speak of a jubilee year of hope, our hope is in the risen Jesus Christ. And he calls us all to renew our faith, he calls us all to be friends, brothers and sisters of each other, to support us with each other, and says that you too must be witnesses of that evangelical message. And for all of you it has touched your lives in a very personal and direct way today. So, we thought at least, in the midst of this pain, that all of you feel for the loss of your friend, that at least we had this opportunity to gather to pray, to renew our faith and to ask God both the eternal rest of our sister, but also the strengthening and consolation, the strengthening of our faith and renewal in hope And, as a church, as brothers and sisters, we gathered for this reason. We therefore ask the Lord to be with us, to be with all of you, while you live these days of pilgrimage of the jubilee year of hope and that you are all protected by the love and grace of God “, that” give peace to your hearts “.
