Today, from France to Brazil, from Canada to Africa, this same missionary zeal, motivated by Christ's love, must continue to animate your lives as religious and priests. Economic upheavals, the collapse of human solidarity, the breakup of families, continuously create new forms of instability among the younger generations. These frequently prompt them to give in to the temptation of despair or tragically to experiment with poverty, drugs or violence. I encourage you to find responses that meet the deep longings of today's young people. Indeed, it is essential that they see in you true educators who, without being hardened, enable them to acquire the human, moral and spiritual values they need for their integral development. Driven by the love of Christ who patiently awaits all things, help them find that the risen Lord is the secret of your lives and that he wants to be the salt of their lives and the light that brightens their future, for he alone can fully answer their thirst for love, dignity and truth! They will be able to join together in building a world that is more fraternal and open to solidarity. It would also be good to foster a vocation recruitment, that enables the young people who want to follow Christ more radically in the priesthood or in consecrated life, to find in properly trained persons the human and spiritual guidance that will help them to discern their vocation. To do this, the help of other formation centres, in dioceses or religious congregations, is very useful and necessary, since it gives your future religious a chance to meet other young people who are preparing for lifelong service in the Church
From the Vatican, 17 May 2002.
JOHN PAUL II