Youth Prayer Vigil : report from Zagreb

If I first had the impression that Croatians were rather relaxed about the Pope’s visit – the cheering throngs of young people who braved the rain and muggy Zagreb climate for the vespers celebration put me to shame. Some 50,000 crowded into Josip Jelacic square and surrounding streets, waving yellow and white Vatican banners and chanting Benedict we love you!

And the Pope was clearly pleased, smiling shyly in the way only he knows how. And when his helpers had to bring out not one but three microphones because 2 failed to work, he looked a little out of sorts but comforted by the cheers of encouragement that rose from the crowd.

There were moments of reflection as young people gave witness to their faith amid the challenges of this frenetic, consumerist world, a procession holding up Zagreb’s beloved image of Our Lady of the Stone gate, songs, prayers and a long pause for silent Eucharistic adoration – you could have heard a pin drop!

Young people are a dynamic part of Croatia’s “new” Catholic church so to speak: a church struggling to rise out of repeated wars and smothered under past Communist regimes. And it was to these kids, Croatia’s future, that Pope Benedict directed his words with the tenderness and care of a Father to his own children.

He painted a portrait of Jesus, the Divine, but also the Man, who wants to take them by the hand and help them overcome trials great and small.

“Jesus speaks to you today… he is your contemporary!” the Pope exclaimed. “”Let him become more and more your friend.”

He spoke of “swimming against the tide” and evoked the image of “shifting sands” – the difficulties, trials and disappointments that most adolescents and young people encounter and urged them to face these challenges by firmly rooting themselves in Christ. And that, he said, calls for “commitment and personal sacrifice.”

Like a Dad concerned for his children’s welfare, he warned them against “enticing promises of easy success” and lifestyles more focused on appearances and material things than on “inner depth.”

He hailed Croatian Blessed Ivan Merz as a model for the country’s young people today. And what teenager wouldn’t melt at his story? A “brilliant young man” the Pope observed. Beginning his university studies only after the death of his first love, Greta, Ivan lived through the horrors of WWI, an experience which “shaped and forged him, helping him to overcome moments of crisis and spiritual struggle.”

Ivan succumbed to a brief illness at the age of 32, after a life “strewn with astonishing and moving acts of charity and goodness” – a way of life he was asking these young people to imitate. “This young life, completely given over to love,” the Pope said, “bears the fragrance of Christ!”

And long after the Pope retired from the square, and the crowds had left it vacant, you could still perceive that strong perfume hanging sweet and heavy in the air…
Earlier in the day, the Pope spoke to some 700 of Croatia’s political, civil, cultural and religious leaders at the a National Theater where he reflected on the theme of conscience - fundamental, he said, to a free and just society. And it was a conscience based on Christian values that formed the basis of the Europe we know today. He noted especially the Church’s contribution to the development of education and culture in Europe over centuries – a theme highlighted by Croatian President Ivo Josipovic who recalled that this year his nation celebrates 20 years of independence, and emphasized Croatia will be bringing its Christian heritage to the EU when it becomes a full fledged member in coming months .

Pope Benedict highlighted the strong and special bonds between Croatia and the Holy See for over 13 centuries, bonds strengthened, he said, “in circumstances difficult and painful.”

For many of those centuries, Croatia was the Christian West’s last line of defence against invading forces from the East. 16^th c. Pope Leo X proclaimed it the “Bulwark of Christianity.” A bulwark that survived to endure the dramatic upheavals of 20^th century Europe thanks to such Croatian Catholic martyrs as Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac whose ultimate loyalty to the Church in Rome cost him his freedom and his life standing firm against the evils of Communism and Nazism.

And, in invoking the figure of Blessed Aloysius Stepinac for the protection of Croatia’s youth at the end of his address, Pope Benedict was holding up one of the Church’s best examples of Christian witness and forgiveness – an example not just for Europe’s soon to be youngest member – but for all the others too.
In Zagreb with Pope Benedict, I’m Tracey McClure

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