Madrid, Spain, Sep 5, 2006 / 22:00 pm
In a message entitled, “Bringing Christ to Young People in the New School Year,” Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela of Madrid says, “We must bring Christ to young people again. So they can know him, love him and follow him.”
In his message the cardinal emphasized “the unappealable need to pass the faith on to our brothers and sisters” who live in Madrid, “where the offer of a life without God and its cultural, social and political expressions are portrayed as more attractive and credible than the Gospel itself.”
The “social and ideological context” of Madrid, he noted, “gravely and decisively conditions children and young people when it comes to laying out their own future.”
“We must bring Christ to young people again,” he urged.
“It’s obvious we need a new missionary impulse which the entire diocesan community should be committed to, in order to bring the news of Jesus Christ, and even more, his very presence, the presence of the Lord that calls them, that loves them…He loves them, so they will love Him!” the cardinal said in his message.
He issued a special call to all Catholics in Madrid to be missionaries to young people, but especially “the Catholic young people, themselves, who have received and welcomed into their lives the grace of friendship with Jesus Christ.”
“All of us, then, are called to make each young person in Madrid realize that the Lord waits at the door of their hearts and wants to enter. Let us help them to open wide the doors of their hearts!” Cardinal Rivera said.
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