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"Teacher, where are you staying ? Come and see." (Jn 1:38-39)
You will meet Jesus where men and women are suffering and hoping; in the little villages, scattered across the continents and seemingly on the fringe of history, as Nazareth was when God sent his angel to Mary; in the hugh metropolis, where millions of human beings live, often as strangers. In reality, every human being is "a fellow citizen" of Christ.
Jesus is living next to you, in the brothers and sisters with whom you share your daily existence. His face is that of the poorest, of those cast aside, who, not infrequently, are victims of an unjust model of development, in which profit is given first place and the human being is a means rather than an end. Jesus' dwelling place is wherever a human person is suffering because rights are denied, hopes betrayed, anxieties ignored. There, in the midst of humankind, is the dwelling of Christ, who asks you to dry every tear in his name, and to remind whoever feels lonely that no one whose hope is placed in him is ever alone.
Message of the Holy Father
to the Youth of the World
on the occasion of the XII World Youth Day 1997
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