Here is a translation of the text of the Video-Message that the Holy Father Francis recorded at the Apostolic Nunciature of Bangkok, addressed to Thai young people gathered today in a Prayer Vigil.
In his message, the Holy Father had a couple of pieces of advice for the youth: “Never stay fallen, get up immediately, may another help you get up, first thing. Second thing: don’t spend your life sitting on the sofa: do life, make life, do; go forward. Always go forward on the path. Commit yourself, and you are going to have an awesome happiness, I assure you.”
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The Holy Father’s Video-Message
Dear Young People,
I know that tonight you are doing a Prayer Vigil, you are praying. And I know that others are walking — coming over here. Both things are lovely: to pray and to walk! One has to do these two things in life: to have one’s heart open to God, because from Him we receive the strength; and to walk, because one can’t stay still in life. A youth can’t retire at 20; he must be walking! — always farther, always going up.
One of you might say to me: ”Yes, Father, but sometimes I’m weak and I fall.” It doesn’t matter! There is an Alpine song that says: “In the art of ascending, what matters isn’t not to fall, but to stay fallen.”
I advise you these two things: never stay fallen, get up immediately, may another help you get up, first thing. Second thing: don’t spend your life sitting on the sofa: do life, make life, do; go forward. Always go forward on the path. Commit yourself, and you are going to have an awesome happiness, I assure you.
May God bless you; I pray for you, do so for me.
[Original text: Spanish] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginia M. Forrester]
