VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - # 034
DATE 17-02-2015

Summary:
- The Pope offers Mass in the Sanctae Marthae Chapel to the Copts killed in
Libya
- Pope's Message for World Youth Day: "Have the courage to be happy"
- Other Pontifical Acts

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 The Pope offers Mass in the Sanctae Marthae Chapel to the Copts killed in
Libya
 Vatican City, 17 February 2015 (VIS) - Pope Francis offered this morning's
Mass in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae to the 21 Egyptian Copts
murdered yesterday in Libya, whose funerals will be held today.
 "Let us offer this Mass for our 21 brother Copts, beheaded for the simple
fact of being Christians. Let us pray for them, so that the Lord may welcome
them as martyrs, for their families, and for my brother Tawadros, who suffers
deeply".
 He went on to pronounce the antiphon from Psalm 31: "For You are my rock and
my fortress; therefore, for Your name's sake, lead me and guide me".
 Yesterday afternoon the Holy Father telephoned the Patriarch, His Holiness
Pope Tawadros II, to express his participation in the profound sorrow of the
Orthodox Coptic Church for the recent barbaric massacre of Egyptian Copts at
the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. He assured him of his prayers and today,
the day of the victims' funerals, joined spiritually in the prayers and the
suffering of the Coptic Church, in the morning Eucharistic celebration.

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 Pope's Message for World Youth Day: "Have the courage to be happy"
 Vatican City, 17 February 2015 (VIS) - "Blessed are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God" is the title of the Holy Father's message for the
thirtieth World Youth Day, celebrated every year on Palm Sunday. The Pope
continues his reflection on the Beatitudes, and after referring to his
previous messages on "revolutionary meaning" and the "powerful summons of
Jesus to embark courageously upon the exciting quest for happiness", he goes
on to focus on "the desire for happiness", starting from the first chapters of
the Book of Genesis which "shows to us the splendid beatitude to which we are
called" and "consists in perfect communion with God, with others, with nature,
and with ourselves".
 Francis divides his message into four parts. After speaking about the desire
for happiness, he analyses the sixth beatitude paragraph by paragraph,
explaining purity of heart. If the heart is considered in the Bible to be the
"centre of the emotions, thoughts and intentions of the human person", its
purity consists fundamentally in the absence of contaminants such as hate,
cowardice, and envy. He then turns to the care for creation, so that it does
not become contaminated, and invites a "human ecology" that " will help us to
breathe the pure air that comes from beauty, from true love, and from
holiness". Francis also urged the young not to allow their ability to love or
be loved be instrumentalised or impaired, and not to trivialise love.
 In the third part, "... for they shall see God", he recalls that Jesus
"awaits us always with open arms", and calls to all "in whatever place or
situation you find yourself". "Encountering God in prayer, the reading of the
Bible and in fraternal life will help you better to know the Lord and
yourselves", writes the Pope. "Like the disciples on the way to Emmaus, the
Lord's voice will make your hearts burn within you. He will open your eyes to
recognise his presence and to discover the loving plan he has for your life".
 "Have the courage to be happy", Francis concludes, recalling that this year's
World Youth Day begins the final stage in preparation for the next great
global event to be held in Krakow, Poland in 2016, thirty years after St. John
Paul II instituted the World Youth Days in the Church. This "pilgrimage of
young people from every continent under the guidance of the Successor of Peter
has truly been a providential and prophetic initiative".
 The full text of the message is given below: Dear Young Friends,
 We continue our spiritual pilgrimage toward Krakow, where in July 2016 the
next international World Youth Day will be held. As our guide for the journey
we have chosen the Beatitudes. Last year we reflected on the beatitude of the
poor in spirit, within the greater context of the Sermon on the Mount.
Together we discovered the revolutionary meaning of the Beatitudes and the
powerful summons of Jesus to embark courageously upon the exciting quest for
happiness. This year we will reflect on the sixth beatitude: "Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God".
 1. The desire for happiness
 The word "blessed", or "happy", occurs nine times in this, Jesus' first great
sermon. It is like a refrain reminding us of the Lord's call to advance
together with him on a road which, for all its many challenges, leads to true
happiness.
 Dear young friends, this search for happiness is shared by people of all
times and all ages. God has placed in the heart of every man and woman an
irrepressible desire for happiness, for fulfilment. Have you not noticed that
your hearts are restless, always searching for a treasure which can satisfy
their thirst for the infinite?
 The first chapters of the Book of Genesis show us the splendid "beatitude" to
which we are called. It consists in perfect communion with God, with others,
with nature, and with ourselves. To approach God freely, to see him and to be
close to him, was part of his plan for us from the beginning; his divine light
was meant to illumine every human relationship with truth and transparency. In
the state of original purity, there was no need to put on masks, to engage in
ploys or to attempt to conceal ourselves from one another. Everything was
clear and pure.
 When Adam and Eve yielded to temptation and broke off this relationship of
trusting communion with God, sin entered into human history. The effects were
immediately evident, within themselves, in their relationship with each other
and with nature. And how dramatic the effects are! Our original purity as
defiled. From that time on, we were no longer capable of closeness to God. Men
and women began to conceal themselves, to cover their nakedness. Lacking the
light which comes from seeing the Lord, they saw everything around them in a
distorted fashion, myopically. The inner compass which had guided them in
their quest for happiness lost its point of reference, and the attractions of
power, wealth, possessions, and a desire for pleasure at all costs, led them
to the abyss of sorrow and anguish.
 In the Psalms we hear the heartfelt plea which mankind makes to God: "What
can bring us happiness? Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord". The
Father, in his infinite goodness, responded to this plea by sending his Son.
In Jesus, God has taken on a human face. Through his Incarnation, life, death
and resurrection, Jesus frees us from sin and opens new and hitherto
unimaginable horizons.
 Dear young men and women, in Christ you find fulfilled your every desire for
goodness and happiness. He alone can satisfy your deepest longings, which are
so often clouded by deceptive worldly promises. As Saint John Paul II said:
"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".
 2. Blessed are the pure in heart
 Let us now try to understand more fully how this blessedness comes about
through purity of heart. First of all, we need to appreciate the biblical
meaning of the word heart. In Hebrew thought, the heart is the centre of the
emotions, thoughts and intentions of the human person. Since the Bible teaches
us that God does not look to appearances, but to the heart, we can also say
that it is from the heart that we see God. This is because the heart is really
the human being in his or her totality as a unity of body and soul, in his or
her ability to love and to be loved.
 As for the definition of the word pure, however, the Greek word used by the
evangelist Matthew is katharos, which basically means clean, pure, undefiled.
In the Gospel we see Jesus reject a certain conception of ritual purity bound
to exterior practices, one which forbade all contact with things and people
(including lepers and strangers) considered impure. To the Pharisees who, like
so many Jews of their time, ate nothing without first performing ritual
ablutions and observing the many traditions associated with cleansing vessels,
Jesus responds categorically: "There is nothing outside a man which by going
into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what
defile him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts,
fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness".
 In what, then, does the happiness born of a pure heart consist? From Jesus'
list of the evils which make someone impure, we see that the question has to
do above all with the area of our relationships. Each one of us must learn to
discern what can "defile" his or her heart and to form his or her conscience
rightly and sensibly, so as to be capable of "discerning the will of God, what
is good and acceptable and perfect". We need to show a healthy concern for
creation, for the purity of our air, water and food, but how much more do we
need to protect the purity of what is most precious of all: our heart and our
relationships. This "human ecology" will help us to breathe the pure air that
comes from beauty, from true love, and from holiness.

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 * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)