"Dear sisters and brothers, good afternoon. Today you are going to walk with Jesus. Jesus is "the way" (Jn 14:6), and we are going to walk with him. For when I was among us, He walked, Jesus walked. He walked healing the sick, caring for the poor, doing justice. He walked preaching, teaching. Jesus walks, but the way that is most engraved in our hearts is the way of Calvary, the way of the cross. And today you go with prayer, we, me too, with prayer to renew the way of the cross. And let us look at Jesus who is passing by and let us walk with him. The way of Jesus is God coming out of himself, coming out of himself to walk among us. That which we hear so many times in the mass, the Word became flesh and walked among us, remember? And the Word became man and walked among us. And he does that out of love. And he does that out of love. 

And the cross, which accompanies every WYD, is the icon, the figure, of this journey. The cross is the greatest meaning of the greatest love, that love with which Jesus wants to embrace our life. Yours, yours, yours, yours, that of each one of us. Jesus walks for me. We all have to say it. Jesus begins this journey for me. To give his life for me. And no one has more love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. Than to lay down one's life for others. Don't forget this, no one has more love than he who lays down his life. And this is what Jesus taught. That is why, when we look at the crucified one, it is so painful, such a hard thing, we see the beauty of the love that gives his life for each one of us.

A very intelligent person used to say a phrase that touched me very much. It goes like this: "Lord, through your ineffable agony, I can believe in love" (P. MAZZOLARI, Un volto da contemplare, Milan 2001, 86); "Lord, through your ineffable agony, I can believe in love". And Jesus walks, but he waits for something. He waits for our company. He waits for us to look, I don't know, he waits to open the windows of my soul, of your soul, of the soul of each one of us. How ugly are closed souls. Who sow inward, who look inward. It makes no sense, Jesus walks and waits with his love, waits with his tenderness, to comfort us. To soothe our tears. I am going to ask a question now, but don't answer it out loud, each of you answer it for yourself. Do I cry from time to time? Are there things in life that make me cry? We have all cried in our lives, and we still cry. And there Jesus is with us. He weeps with us, because he accompanies us in the darkness within. Let's have a little silence and each one of us tell Jesus why we cry in life. Each one of us tell him now. In silence.

Jesus with his tenderness wipes away our hidden tears, Jesus waits to fill our loneliness with his closeness. How sad are the moments of loneliness. He is there, he wants to fill our loneliness, Jesus wants to fill our fear, your fear. My fear. Those dark fears, he wants to fill them with his consolation. And He waits to push us, to embrace the risk of loving. But you know it, you know it better than I do. Loving is risky. You have to take the risk of loving. That is a risk, but it is worth taking. And He accompanies us in it, He always accompanies us, He always walks with us, He is always with us throughout our lives.

Today we are going to walk the path with Him, the path of His suffering, the path of our anxieties, the path of our loneliness.

Now a second of silence and let each one of us think about our own suffering, think about our own anxiety, think about our own miseries. Don't be afraid. Think about them. And think of the desire for the soul to smile again."