VATICAN - Benedict XVI tells European university students: “Your missionary work in the university setting consists in bearing witness to the personal encounter you have had with Jesus Christ, the Truth that lights the path of every man.”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “Your missionary work in the university setting consists in bearing witness to the personal encounter you have had with Jesus Christ, the Truth that lights the path of every man. From that encounter with Him comes a 'newness of heart,' capable of giving a new orientation to one's personal existence. Only in this manner does one become yeast and leaven for a society enlivened by evangelical love.” This was the exhortation that the Holy Father Benedict XVI made to the participants in the First European Encounter of University Students, sponsored by the Catechesis-School-University Commission of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences (CCEE), whom he received in an audience on Saturday, July 11, Feast of Saint Benedict, Patron of Europe.
Benedict XVI said: “After the European meeting of professors held two years ago, you students now gather together to offer the Bishops' Conferences of Europe your openness to continuing on the path of cultural elaboration that Saint Benedict saw was necessary for human and Christian maturing of the people of Europe. This could occur if you, like the disciples of Emmaus, meet the Risen Lord in a concrete ecclesial experience, and especially in the Eucharistic Celebration.” The Pontiff then highlighted that university pastoral action should express itself “in all its theological and spiritual rigor, helping young people in making their communion with Christ lead them to perceive the deepest mystery of man and history,” and the university chaplaincies “can be sites for the formation of mature believers, men and women who know they are loved by God and called, in Christ, to contribute to the university campus ministry.” He then mentioned how the Christian presence in the university “becomes increasingly demanding and also attractive, because the faith is called, as in past centuries, to offer its irreplaceable service to knowledge, which in modern-day society is the true motor of development. From knowledge, enriched by the contribution of the faith, depends the ability of a people to look upon the future with hope, overcoming the temptations of a purely materialistic vision of our essence and history.”
“Dear young people, you are the future of Europe!” the Pope exclaimed, recalling that during these years of study the university students are called to invest their greatest resources, not only intellectual ones, in forming their own personality and contributing to the common good. “Working for the progress of knowledge is the specific vocation of the university, and it demands increasingly higher moral and spiritual qualities, in the face of the vastness and complexity of the knowledge that mankind has at its disposition. The new cultural synthesis, which at this time is being elaborated in Europe and in the globalized world, is in need of contributions from intellectuals who are capable of returning talk of God to the classrooms – or better yet, of reviving man's desire to seek God – 'quaerere Deum' – which I have made reference to on other occasions.”
The Pope's final invitation to the youth from 31 European nations was that, along with their professors, they may “create laboratories of faith and culture, sharing in the tiring work of study and research with all their friends.” “Love your universities, as they are the training ground for virtue and service. The Church in Europe places great trust in all your generous apostolic work.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 13/7/2009)