OAR. 31-07-2008
Pope Benedict XVI evoked the figure of Saint Augustine at the closing of the World Youth Day 2008 held in Australia.The Holy Father remembers Saint Augustine at the World Youth Day in Sydney
Pope Benedict XVI evoked the figure of Saint Augustine at the closing of the World Youth Day 2008 held in Australia. The more than 400,000 people who attended heard the Pope’s call to unity for the whole Church and his recalling the effort of Saint Augustine to grapple with the meaning of the Trinity.
The World Youth Day 2008 was a success for the Catholic Church and her 81-year old pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI. Some 400,000 people attended the closing mass of 20 July. Addressing himself to the Catholics, the Pope stressed unity. His words during the vigil with the youth offered an overview of the theology of unity. Benedict XVI sketched the effort of Saint Augustine to explain the meaning of the Trinity, central doctrine of Christianity, utilizing it to call for unity within the Church.
Benedict XVI then used Saint Augustine to deepen into that question before the youth, many of them children and underage, and told them that the theologian’s thinking “gradually evolved”. “As a young man he had followed Manichaeism”, he told them before continuing: “This led him to three particular insights about the Holy Spirit as the bond of unity within the Blessed Trinity: unity as communion, unity as abiding love, and unity as giving and gift”.
Spiritual emptiness
Addressing all Australians, the Pope decried in the homily of the closing mass that “In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair”. And on many occasions he attributed this emptiness to the plague of relativism, the belief that there is no truth.
The World Youth Day 2008 was a success for the Catholic Church and her 81-year old pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI. “Unfortunately – said Benedict XVI during the youth vigil – the temptation to ‘go it alone’ persists. Some today portray their local community as somehow separate from the so-called institutional Church, by speaking of the former as flexible and open to the Spirit and the latter as rigid and devoid of the Spirit”.
“Unity is of the essence of the Church – continued the Holy Father – it is a gift we must recognize and cherish. Tonight, let us pray for the resolve to nurture unity: contribute to it! resist any temptation to walk away! For it is precisely the comprehensiveness, the vast vision, of our faith – solid yet open, consistent yet dynamic, true yet constantly growing in insight – that we can offer our world”.
Benedict XVI then used Saint Augustine to deepen into that question before the youth, many of them children and underage, and told them that the theologian’s thinking “gradually evolved”. “As a young man he had followed Manichaeism”, he told them before continuing: “This led him to three particular insights about the Holy Spirit as the bond of unity within the Blessed Trinity: unity as communion, unity as abiding love, and unity as giving and gift”.
Spiritual emptiness
Addressing all Australians, the Pope decried in the homily of the closing mass that “In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair”. And on many occasions he attributed this emptiness to the plague of relativism, the belief that there is no truth.
The World Youth Day 2008 was a success for the Catholic Church and her 81-year old pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI. “Unfortunately – said Benedict XVI during the youth vigil – the temptation to ‘go it alone’ persists. Some today portray their local community as somehow separate from the so-called institutional Church, by speaking of the former as flexible and open to the Spirit and the latter as rigid and devoid of the Spirit”.
“Unity is of the essence of the Church – continued the Holy Father – it is a gift we must recognize and cherish. Tonight, let us pray for the resolve to nurture unity: contribute to it! resist any temptation to walk away! For it is precisely the comprehensiveness, the vast vision, of our faith – solid yet open, consistent yet dynamic, true yet constantly growing in insight – that we can offer our world”.
Related contents
News
JULY 2008 · AUSTRALIA.
Recollect Augustinian Youth from the Philippines present in Sydney
JULY 2008 · WORLD.
ARVY in midcourse, trains its sight on the cross and the youth of Sydney
Documents
Address of Benedict XVI in Sidney
Autor: Benedicto XVI (86 Kb)
Picture Galleries
JULY 2008. AUSTRALIA.
Las Juventudes Agustino Recoletas de Filipinas en Sidney
Interesting links
JAR Zone
Official website of Lay Christian Youth.
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