Each of us is an individual, a person, a creature of God, one of his children, someone very special whom God loves and for whom Christ died. This identity of ours determines the way we must live, the way we must act, the way we must view our mission in the world. We come from God, we depend on God, God has a plan for us – a plan for our lives, for our bodies, for our souls, for our future. This plan for us is extremely important – so important that God became man to explain it to us.
In God’s plan we are individuals, yes, but we are also part of a community. The Second Vatican Council emphasized the fact that God did not call us to share his life merely as unrelated individuals. Rather he wanted to mould us into a people as his sons and daughters (Cfr. Ad Gentes, 2). This aspect of our being a community, of our sharing God’s life as a people is part of our identity – who we are, what we are, where we are going.
Right away we can see that as persons we have responsibilities and that these responsibilities are part of our freedom. The Vatican Council went so far as to say that “man is defined first of all by his responsibilities towards his brothers and sisters and towards history” (Gaudium et Spes, 55).
To understand ourselves as members of a community, as individuals linked together to make up the People of God, as persons with responsibility for others is a great insight – an insight that is necessary for fulfilling our mission properly.
Pope John Paul II
Address to the Young People of New Orleans
September 12, 1987
