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ADDRESS OF POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO A GROUP OF YOUNG PILGRIMS FROM THAILAND

Holy Saturday, 6 April 1985

 

Dear Young People from Thailand,

Eleven months have passed since I had the great joy of visiting your homeland. And today your visit brings back so many memories of that visit.

I wish to reciprocate the warm welcome that you and your fellow citizens gave me last May in Bangkok. I wish to assure you all once again of my profound respect and esteem for the venerable traditions of your land.

It is an added joy for me to welcome you as young representatives of Thailand to the International Youth Year festivities in Rome. By your presence you have given Thailand a part in the great world gathering of young people, and you too have been personally enriched by the solidarity of so many of your brothers and sisters intent on building - building together - a better world: a true civilization of love and truth, justice, freedom and peace.

Your visit to Rome also coincides with the celebration of Holy Week and Easter. For those of you who are Christian, today’s feast of Holy Saturday has a very special meaning: this is the day in which the Church asks you to remember and renew your Baptism. She asks you to realize that Baptism is the greatest event in your life, because it links you to Christ; it gives you a sharing in his death and Resurrection, and commits you to a whole new pattern of living. By reason of your Baptism you have a special vocation to “walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5, 2).

And today is the day that you are called to ratify the promises of your Baptism, the commitment of your Christian lives. Today, as never before, you must see clearly what it means, in practice, to be a Christian, to follow Christ, to embrace his word, and to follow him through his Passion to the glory of his Resurrection. But for all of you, Christians and non-Christians, today is a day of joyful commitment to the ideals of a common service to humanity, a common mission of peace, a common endeavour to promote fraternal love in Thailand and through out the world.

May God be with you and bless you all!

 

© Copyright 1985 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

 



Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana