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It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness. He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you. 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, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.
Excerpted from the address of Pope John Paul II at the prayer vigil at World Youth Day in Rome, August 19, 2000
