his issue of the
Xaverian Mission Newsletter lends its voice to young people from various parts of the world who will speak of their dreams and desires, of their aspirations and hesitations, will declare their curiosity and ask questions. Most of all, young people will profess their hope.
The spirit of the world, with its “many false illusions and parodies of happiness," threatens to extinguish in the young the light of faith, hope and love by 11 excluding God, moral truths and personal responsibility" from their lives.
The call of the Lord, instead, has the words of life which "humanize the world we live in and makes the young convincing witnesses to the Gospel in a world so much in need of God's saving grace."
In Toronto, at the World Youth Day 2002, Pope John Paul 11 affirmed that "hope springs eternal in the hearts of the young." And he cried out to them, “Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it!”
Tiguera, a young man from Latin America, picks up that cry of hope in the following poem:
To have hope is to believe that history is still open to God’s dream and to human creativity.
To have hope is yet to affirm that it is possible to dream of a different world without hunger, without injustices, without discriminations.
To have hope is to be herald of God and voice of men and women of good will, tearing down walls, doing away with frontiers, building bridges.
To have hope is to believe in the revolutionary power of faith, it is to leave the door open for the Spirit to enter and make all things new.
To have hope is not to give up, it is to believe that life conquers death, it is to start all over again as many times as necessary.
To have hope is to believe that hope is not the last thing to die.
To have hope is to believe that hope cannot die, that hope does not die.
To have hope is to live.
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)