The full text of the message can be read on the Vatican website, but we have highlighted a few passages for your convenience.
- You are precious” in God’s eyes (Is 43:4). You remind us that we are all children, brothers and sisters.
- Pay attention to the stories of grown-ups: your moms and dads, your grandparents and great grandparents.
- Do not forget all those other children and young people who are already battling illness and hardship, in hospital or at home, and those who even now are being cruelly robbed of their childhood.
- Jesus told us: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5); this is the theme I have chosen for your first World Day. With Jesus, we can dream of the renewal of our human family and work for a more fraternal society that cares for our common home.
- Joy is born of gratitude for the gifts we have received and which we share in turn and it grows in our relationships with others.
- Now, I am going to share a special secret with you. If we really want to be happy, we need to pray, to pray a lot, to pray every day, because prayer connects us directly to God.
- I would ask all of you to pray the same prayer that Jesus taught us – the Our Father. Recite it every morning and every evening, in your families too, together with your parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents.
- Jesus is calling us and he wants us to join actively with him, on this World Children’s Day, to become builders of a new, more humane, just and peaceful world.