(This is an amalgam of two of Pope Benedict’s 2005 World Youth Day. From His welcome address and the adoration Vigil, both are more than worth the read, but I’ve tried to sum them up by putting the core of each together)
“Going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him” (Mt 2: 11 We can imagine the awe which the Magi experienced before the Child in swaddling clothes. Only faith enabled them to recognize in the face of that Child the King whom they were seeking, the God to whom the star had guided them. In him, crossing the abyss between the finite and the infinite, the visible and the invisible, the Eternal entered time, the Mystery became known by entrusting himself to us in the frail body of a small child. Dear friends, this is not a distant story that took place long ago. It is with us now. In the Eucharist he is present before us and in our midst. As at that time, so now he is mysteriously veiled in a sacred silence; as at that time, it is here that the true face of God is revealed. For us he became a grain of wheat that falls on the ground and dies and bears fruit until the end of the world (cf. Jn 12: 24).
He is present now as he was then in Bethlehem. He invites us to that inner pilgrimage called adoration. Let us set off on this pilgrimage of the soul and let us ask him to be our guide.
Enlightened by the Word, it is in Bethlehem – the “House of Bread” – that we can always encounter the inconceivable greatness of a God who humbled himself even to appearing in a manger, to giving himself as food on the altar.
Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives the fullness of life to humanity! With Mary, say your own “yes” to God, for he wishes to give himself to you.
I repeat today what I said at the beginning of my Pontificate: “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation”—Pope Benedict XVI
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