Pope Benedict XVI arrives for the closing Mass of World Youth Day at Marienfeld, near Cologne, Germany, Aug. 21, 2005. The Mass in the former mining area was attended by more than 1 million pilgrims. (CNS photo)

Ministering to teens and young adults is challenging. Often they can be the most enthusiastic members of the Body of Christ, but the question persists: How can the Church keep them interested and present the faith in an engaging way that does not dilute the truth?

As is the case with so many elements of Catholic life, Pope Benedict XVI provides an excellent example to follow. It might surprise some that the 83-year-old pontiff is able to reach a generation that is engrossed with iPods, social networking and the latest trends. Nonetheless, the Holy Father has often spoken to young people — both teens and young adults — during his five-year papacy. He has attended World Youth Day events in Germany and Australia, visited facilities for underprivileged and disabled youth, spoken frequently to seminarians and young religious, and engaged in dialogue with young people at youth events in Italy.

In these encounters, the pope never talks down to his listeners; he addresses them not as the future of the Church to be entertained or coddled, but as a vital part of the Body of Christ with an important mission. He invites them to look honestly at the yearnings of their heart, to open themselves to Christ as the answer to those yearnings, and to find that for which all people ache — true freedom.

A young woman from the Archdiocese of New York greets Pope Benedict XVI during a rally with young people at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., April 19, 2008. (CNS photo)

To an audience of young adults gathered at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., during the pope’s pastoral visit to the United States in 2008, Pope Benedict asked, “Friends, again I ask you, what about today? What are you seeking? What is God whispering to you?” He regularly poses these pointed questions to young people, but does not leave them hanging. He has answers.

The yearning of the human heart for its source and destiny is consistently a crucial element of the pope’s writing, echoing St. Augustine’s description of the restless heart that will find rest only in God. Every movement we make to seek beauty, goodness and truth — even our wrong turns — are, at root, a search for God.

Pope Benedict knows that this seeking is a fundamental and defining part of a young person’s life, and that there is a beauty to youth that speaks of enthusiasm, goodness and generosity in this search. As he said to youth gathered in Genoa, Italy, in 2008: “Being young implies being good and generous, and once again true goodness is Jesus himself … whom you know or whom your heart is seeking: he is the Friend who never betrays, faithful to the point of giving his life on the Cross.”

Benedict added, “Only after discovering Jesus do we realize ‘this is what I was waiting for.’”

The world may have a different message, but the truth is that what we seek is not even a “what” but a “who.”

While it is not unfashionable for a young person to admit one’s spiritual side, it is unfashionable to acknowledge that there might be just one answer to every person’s search — and that this answer is found, not just in one’s heart or in interesting ideas, but in the Church. Often, in helping young people get past this obstacle, the temptation is to create a new experience of religion that is more appealing. Pope Benedict, on the other hand, offers an approach that is both simple and authentic: to patiently connect the dots between the seeker, Christ and the Church.

While we yearn for freedom — and to be ourselves, accepted and loved — the Church is often viewed in terms of constraint, rules and conformity.

What, then, is the clearest path to help young people understand what God is “whispering” to them through the Body of Christ?

First, to define freedom — a theme that Pope Benedict explores frequently through the lens of faith. Since God is infinite love, freedom, truth and beauty, when we are joined to him in faith in the sacramental life, we are joined to exactly that — God’s infinite love. That is freedom. Everything else the world proposes is limited.

On April 24, 2005, concluding his first homily as pope, Benedict stated: “Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything.”

Once we are open to the true freedom found in Christ, the question remains — why the Church? Why not just Jesus alone, on our own? Pope Benedict reminds young people, as he said in a 2006 general audience, “This individualistically chosen Jesus is an imaginary Jesus. We cannot have Jesus without the reality he created and in which he communicates himself.”

From here, the pope invites young people to dig deeper, to embrace Christ in the Church, to learn more about Christ through the Scriptures and to be in union with God through the sacramental life.

“You will not be afraid any longer to lose your freedom, because you will live it fully by giving it away in love,” the pope said to young people in Sardinia, Italy, in September 2008. “You will no longer be attached to material goods, because you will feel within you the joy of sharing them. You will cease to be sad with the sadness of the world, but you will feel sorrow at evil and rejoice at goodness, especially for mercy and forgiveness. And if this happens, if you will have truly discovered God in the Face of Christ, you will no longer think of the Church as an institution external to you, but as your spiritual family, as we are living now, at this moment.”

Spanish young people cheer and express excitement as Pope Benedict XVI leads Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican April 5, 2009. World Youth Day will be held in Madrid, Spain, in 2011. (CNS photo)

Real freedom in Christ leads us, as Pope Benedict often says, on a great “adventure” of discipleship, an adventure young people are invited to share right now. At World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, the pope reminded young people of the missionaries who originally brought Christ to Australia: “The great majority were young — some still in their late teens — and when they bade farewell to their parents, brothers and sisters, and friends, they knew they were unlikely ever to return home. Their whole lives were a selfless Christian witness.”

Several months earlier, Benedict told those gathered at St. Joseph’s Seminary: “You are Christ’s disciples today. Shine his light upon this great city and beyond. Show the world the reason for the hope that resonates within you. Tell others about the truth that sets you free.”

The pope recognizes that this is not an easy life. It requires a definitive decision in a world that discourages commitment. It also requires courage and a willingness to “die for love.” During his pastoral trip to Africa in March 2009, Benedict put it this way: “There is no doubt about it: Life is worthwhile only if you take courage and are ready for adventure, if you trust in the Lord who will never abandon you.”

There is no softening of the Christian message here — no attempt to make it more palatable to those living a pleasure-centered lifestyle. The pope offers the call of Jesus Christ: It’s about more, not less; about adventure, not settling; about the freedom we find in God’s love, not the prison of worldly expectations and judgment.

What Pope Benedict XVI proposes to young people — and to all of us — is to seek one’s destiny through Christ, to listen to the Lord through his Church and to embark with the saints on the great adventure of discipleship. As Catholics, we are called to joyfully bear this good fruit of true freedom for the sake of a hurting world in need of Christ.

“Be united but not closed,” the pope said during his address in Genoa. “Be humble but not fearful. Be simple but non ingenuous. Be thoughtful but not complicated. Enter into dialogue with all, but be yourselves.”