Text of Pope Benedict's Yankee Stadium Mass homily

These are the truths that set us free! They are the truths which alone can guarantee respect for the inalienable dignity and rights of each man, woman and child in our world -- including the most defenseless of all human beings, the unborn child in the mother's womb.

In a world where, as Pope John Paul II, speaking in this very place, reminded us, Lazarus continues to stand at our door (Oct. 2, 1979, Yankee Stadium homily, No. 7), let your faith and love bear rich fruit in outreach to the poor, the needy and those without a voice. Young men and women of America, I urge you: Open your hearts to the Lord's call to follow him in the priesthood and the religious life. Can there be any greater mark of love than this: to follow in the footsteps of Christ, who was willing to lay down his life for his friends (cf. Jn 15:13)?

In today's Gospel the Lord promises his disciples that they will perform works even greater than his (cf. Jn 14:12). Dear friends, only God in his providence knows what works his grace has yet to bring forth in your lives and in the life of the church in the United States. Yet Christ's promise fills us with sure hope. Let us now join our prayers to his as living stones in that spiritual temple which is his one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. Let us lift our eyes to him, for even now he is preparing for us a place in his Father's house. And empowered by his Holy Spirit, let us work with renewed zeal for the spread of his kingdom.

"Happy are you who believe!" (cf. 1 Pt 2:7). Let us turn to Jesus! He alone is the way that leads to eternal happiness, the truth who satisfies the deepest longings of every heart and the life who brings ever new joy and hope to us and to our world. Amen.

(In Spanish:)

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord:

I greet you with affection, and I am happy to celebrate this holy Mass giving thanks to God for the bicentennial of the moment when the Catholic Church in this nation began to develop. Looking back at the path the faith traveled in those years, which was not free of difficulties, we praise the Lord for the fruit that the Word of God has born in these lands and express our desire that Christ, the way, the truth and the life, will become ever better known and loved.

Here, in this country of liberty, I want to proclaim forcefully that the word of Christ does not eliminate our aspirations for a full and free life but helps us discover our true dignity as children of God and encourages us in the fight against anything that would enslave us, beginning with our own selfishness and whims. At the same time it encourages us to express our faith through a life of charity and by making our church communities all the more welcoming and fraternal.

Above all I entrust to you young people the great challenge of deepening your belief in Christ and giving it expression in a real nearness to the poor as well as in a generous response to the calls that the Lord continues to address to you by undertaking a life of total consecration to God and the church as a priest or religious.

Dear brothers and sisters, I invite you to look at the future with hope, permitting Jesus to enter your lives. He is the only path that leads to the happiness that never ends, to the truth that satisfies the most noble human expectations and to a life full of joy for the good of the church and of the world. May God bless you. CD

Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops