I feel very privileged to have met Saint John Paul II (1920-2005) on a number of occasions during the time I studied in Rome. I was also present at some of his many memorable World Youth Day gatherings. He had an enormous heart for young people and a keen sense that young people were the future not only of the Church but also of humanity itself. At World Youth Day in Rome in 2000, he spoke movingly to almost three million young people from all around the world as follows:
“It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.” (John Paul II, Tor Vergata, 2000)