A GENTLE TOUCH OF HOPE

Card. Roger Etchegaray

It is easy to image what will happen: they will start by counting you, even if only approximately: «there were several hundereds of thousands of them». It is always like this when you come together for some important event in some part of the world. Perhaps this is a distortion of those who judge you above all from the point of view of quantity. Certainly, there will be so many of you a colourful stream winding through the streets of Paris, like the Seine under its bridges. But when it is - once again - the People who calls you, what importance has you number? None at all, you are more than that: all together you become just one smile of God. This is your strength, and you are they first to realise it. For you are not merely the unclear reflection of that smile, you are its living image. You are the hoisted sails of the hope which Christ transmits to the world. Now that the sun is setting on a millennium, there is need of hope in order to see the light of dawnamidst our misty surroundings. The dawn of Christ's new millennium. You will be the ones to make the first imprint on the pilgrimage through the new centuries, this river of history which flows out - as you do when you return - to all four corners of the earth. The Great Jubilee of the Year Two Thousand comes to remind us that two thousand years ago Christ became the companion of man's journey. And from that moment he has never left us. The event we are preparing to celebrate bears first of all the mark of a planetary thanksging to the world's only Saviour, yesterday, today and for ever. We all are part of this celebration, but the young people of Paris are a little more so because this meeting - as the Pope says in his message - will form «a living icon of the pilgrim Church along the roads of the world». In presence of the Holy Year Cross, which will have visited all the dioceses of France, all eyes will look towards Christ. Yes, it is really true: Christ needs the hands of young people to give the world a gentle touch of hope.