Pope
invites young Albanians to build their lives on Christ
 |
| A young man at the Pope's Mass in Tirana. |
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has urged the new generations of
Albania to reject the idolatry of money, the false freedom of
individualism, to addiction and violence, and he has encouraged them to
cultivate a culture of encounter and of solidarity.
The
Pope's words to the young came during his Angelus address after the celebration
of Holy Mass in Tirana's Mother Teresa Square. Commenting off-the-cuff that he
has been told that Albania is the youngest country in Europe, Pope Francis
invited the youth to build a better future for their country without forgetting
the lessons of the past.
Please find below the full text
of the Pope's Angelus address:
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
Before
concluding this celebration, I wish to greet each of you who have come from all
over Albania and from nearby countries. I thank you for your presence and
for the witness of your faith.
In
a particular way, I wish to greet the young! They tell me that Albania is the
youngest country in Europe, so it is to you that I turn! I invite you to
build your lives on Jesus Christ: the one who builds on Christ builds on rock,
because he is always faithful, even if we sometimes lack faith (cf. 2 Tim.
2:13). Jesus knows us better than anyone else; when we sin, he does not
condemn us but rather says to us, “Go and sin no more” (Jn 8:11). Dear
young people, you are the new generation of Albania, the future of the nation.
With the power of the Gospel and the example of the martyrs, you know how to
say “No” to the idolatry of money, “No” to the false freedom of individualism,
“No” to addiction and to violence; you also know how to say “Yes” to a culture of
encounter and of solidarity, “Yes” to the beauty that is inseparable from the
good and the true; “Yes” to a life lived with great enthusiasm and at the same
time faithful in little things. In this way, you will build a better
Albania and a better world in the footsteps of your ancestors.
Let
us turn to the Virgin Mary, whom you venerate above all under her title of “Our
Lady of Good Counsel”. I stand before her, spiritually, at her Shrine in
Scutari, so dear to you, and to her I entrust the entire Church in Albania and
all the people of this country, especially families, children and the elderly
who are the living memory of the people. May Our Lady guide you to walk
“together with God towards the hope that does not delude.”
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