We publish SIR’s eighth daily comment on the 23rd WYD
"Are you building your lives on solid foundations, are you building something that will endure?". And: "What legacy will you leave to the youth who will come after you? What difference will you make?". The Pope’s questions were posed as a provocation to the young people who participated in the final mass of the 23rd WYD in Sydney. It was almost as if he asked them: "What will you do with this experience once you’ve returned home? Will you consign it to your album of memories or will you turn it into a contagious witness of love and faith?" The Pope, as always, goes straight to the essence, with the concern and trust of a father who is placing the future in the hands of his children. He knows very well the challenges of "a world that wishes to forget God, or even to reject him in the name of a false concept of freedom". That would spell the end of humanity. And so the Pope asks of the new generations to conceive and build "a new era in which love is not possessive and egoistic, but pure, faithful and sincerely free, open to others, and respectful of their dignity: a love that promotes their good and that irradiates joy and beauty". To this enterprise the Holy Father calls the young in the first place: he knows their smiles but he also knows their capacity for thought, for projecting, for action. He equally knows the difficulties and obstacles. That’s why he confronts each young person with the "great unknown" whose face the WYD revealed: the Holy Spirit.
