Bishop Joel Baylon (Bishop of Masbate and Head of the CBCP Youth Commission); Fr. Arthur Navales and the Diocesan Youth Directors here; Brothers in the Priesthood; Religious; my dear young people; brothers and Sisters in Christ:

First of all I say, welcome to all of you; welcome to the Archdiocese of Cebu. May this celebration of the first Regional World Youth Day in the Visayas be truly meaningful for each one of you and truly fruitful for the local Churches in the Visayas where you come from. May this event yield the rich harvest of young people becoming disciples who truly know Jesus, are committed to Jesus, and follow Jesus in their lives.

For this is the important challenge of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, in this Message for the World Youth Day 2006. To each one of you, the Holy Father says: “To build your life on Christ, to accept (His) Word with joy, and put its teaching into practice: this, young people of the third millennium, should be your programme”.

The first is: “Build your life on Christ”. This challenge entails - getting to know Jesus, loving Him, and following Him in our daily lives. As the song goes, ”To see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly, day by day.”

Although there are many persons we want to know in our life, the ONE PERSON we all really want to know is JESUS CHRIST. “Build your life on Christ.” He is the person God the Father sent to us so that we could know Him. If you, young people, want to ground your being and acting in someone solid, that someone would have to be JESUS CHRIST.

But how do we know Jesus Christ? When He walked this earth two thousand years ago, in Palestine, it would have been elatively easier to be His disciples. Although as we know, not everybody became so or wanted to do so. He had friends, but he ended up crucified. So how do we get to know him in the third millennium?

Let us be assured that although we do not see Jesus, he is with us. He has said; “I will be with you all days even unto the consummation of the world.” Mt. 28:20. So we trust that He will be with us. We do not always know how, we do not always know when, we do not always where, but if we have faith, we have to believe that he will be with us. He said so. Our wanting to know him, from the very start, happens because he wants to know us and wants to be known by us.

He has indicated how. When his first disciples asked: “Rabbi, where do you live?” he answered, “Come and see” Jn. 1:39. But where will we see him? First, inside us. He said, “Whoever loves me, will keep my word and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” Jn. 14:23. Second, around us, among us, and between us: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.” Third, he is in our brothers and sisters; “Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me” Mt. 25:45.

Thus, we get to know Jesus in ourselves, and in our brothers and sisters, and in the very words He left to us through the Gospels. That’s why the Holy Father said: “Accept Jesus’ Word with joy and put its teaching into practice”. To be Jesus’ disciple today, as it was in the years He walked this earth, we need to be with Him. We just have to be. We just have to create time. To read God’s Word. To be silent. To pray. Again, the Pope said: “Reading, study and meditation of the Word, should then flow into a life of consistent fidelity to Christ and his teachings”.

This will not be easy, but when we try to do it, the Spirit of the Lord is with us. We do that with much hope, for the Lord Jesus Himself said: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

May I entrust each of you, your safe return to your homes, and the fruits of this 1^st Regional World Youth Day, to the maternal care of our Mother Mary, in her Immaculate Concepcion, the patroness of this Cathedral.