In his message in the Encounter with the Youth this afternoon in the University of Santo Tomas Grandstand, he has left words that leave a mark.

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Become a beggar.

How many young people among you are like this? You know how to give and yet you have ever learned how to receive. You still lack one thing. Become a beggar. This is what you still lack. Learn how to beg. This isn’t easy to understand. To learn how to beg. To learn how to receive with humility. To learn to be evangelized by the poor, by those we help, the sick, orphans, they have so much to give us. Have I learned how to beg? Or am I self-sufficient? Do I think I need nothing? Do you know you too are poor? Do you know your own poverty and your need to receive? Do you let yourselves be evangelized by those you serve? This is what helps you mature in your commitment to give to others. Learn how to open your hand from your very own poverty.

It's true that this is not easy to understand. At first I thought he was telling us to experience the absence of the riches we have. When he said we too are poor, I thought he was trying to tell us the very common teaching of simplicity of lifestyle. But that's not what he meant. He teaches that, too, yes, but it's not what he meant this time. He wants us to realise, that there are things we are in need of. That we are not self-sufficient. We, too, are in poverty. Our own poverty. Like how some who are wealthy, can be poor in love of family. Those who are rich with happiness, can be poor in health. Those who are rich with everything else, can be poor in spirit. What I believe the Holy Father is telling us, whatever it is that we are poor of, it's alright to accept it. Ask when we need to, that's alright. And learn to receive in humility. His words are very touching and moving. I hope we, more than just hearing these words, will reflect on it, and live by it.

 

Women are able to pose questions we men are unable to understand.

Women have much to tell us in today’s society. Sometimes we are too “machistas” and we don’t allow enough space to women. But women can see things from a different angle to us, with a different eye. Women are able to pose questions we men are unable to understand. Look out for this fact: she is the only one who has put a question for which there is no answer. She couldn’t put it into words but expressed it with tears.

Through that love let that information bear fruit.

Today, with so many means of communication we are overloaded with information. Is that bad? No. It is good and can help. But there is a real danger of living in a way that we accumulate information. We have so much information but maybe we don’t know what to do with that information. So we run the risk of becoming museums of young people who have everything but not knowing what to do with it. We don’t need young museums but we do need holy young people. You may ask me: Father, how do we become saints? This is another challenge. It is the challenge of love. What is the most important subject you have to lean at university? What is most important subject you have to learn in life? To learn how to love. This is the challenge that life offers you: to learn bow to love. Not just to accumulate information without knowing what to do with it.. But through that love let that information bear fruit.

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 My country is very blessed to be given the privilege to encounter the Pope. It's truly a blessing and an honor to have him here and we will surely miss his presence. He maybe leaving us soon, but his words remain with us.