From EWTN - World Youth Day 2005--The Pope greets the Pilgrims

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Our Holy Father cited the litany of Saints that have connections to Cologne. He spoke of the presence of the Magi in Cologne, through the relics that rest there to this day. He saved the best for last, and I found his final words of greeting the most touching:

Now you yourselves are here, dear young people from throughout the world. You represent those distant peoples who came to know Christ through the Magi and who were brought together as the new People of God, the Church, which gathers men and women from every culture. Today it is your task to live and breathe the Church’s universality. Let yourselves be inflamed by the fire of the Spirit, so that a new Pentecost will renew your hearts. Through you, may other young people everywhere come to recognize in Christ the true answer to their deepest aspirations, and may they open their hearts to receive the Word of God Incarnate, who died and rose from the dead for the salvation of the world.

Pope Benedict XVI proclaims his hearts true desire for all the WYD pilgrims. He wants them to bear Christ crucified to the world through their joyous witness. He wants them to share the fire of a new pentacost in their hearts with the cold world that desperately longs for warmth. I do not believe he will be disappointed.

I hear his words as though he speaks to me. Though I am no WYD pilgrim, I, too, want to "be inflamed by the Fire of the Spirit, so that a new Pentecost will renew" my heart. I too want others to "recognize in Christ the true answer to their deepest aspirations" through my witness to the Son of God. My challenge is to live this witness through the contours of the life I live, not the life I wish I could live. I taste this witness when I sit next to Frankie as he plays with my Cursillista Cross. I hold him close and pray that Jesus always keep Frankie close to his heart. Then my son turns to me and showers me with kisses, as only a two-year-old can do.

I will taste this witness anew in September, when I stand with a collegue and face a class of nineth-graders. I will call upon them to give the very best that they have to each other and to themselves. Then they can become the icons of greatness their families and friends need in order to transform their own lives for the better.

May the fire of the Spirit set my heart ablaze once more, and may that fire spread through all I meet until they're a conflaguration of Love for the Lord! May Jesus Christ ever hear the praise of his servants and brothers, this day and every day! Amen!