"The life that is in you is beautiful and exciting. What to do with it?": this "crucial question", said the Pope to the young whom he met tonight in the municipal stadium of Pacaembu, "Paulo Machado de Carvalho", in São Paulo, is the "same" as that of the young rich man of Matthew’s Gospel, "which we have just heard". "The question of the Gospel he explained does not only concern the future" and the afterlife, but one’s commitment "to the present" as well; in other words, "the meaning of life", to which "Jesus is the only one who can give us an answer", because He is the only one "who can show the meaning of present life and give it a content of fullness". Hence the importance of welcoming Him through faith and the Commandments, which "do not reduce our freedom. On the contrary, they are powerful internal stimuli". Then, the Pope lingered on the "wealth of youth" that "leads to rediscover life as a gift and as a task", and instead on the "deficiency of hope" that arouses so many fears in the young who have not discovered "the meaning of life" and are the victims of violence and drugs. Hence the invitation to the people present "to evangelise the boys and girls that are wandering around the world as sheep without a shepherd".
