If you wish to talk to Christ and to accept all the truth of his testimony, you must on the one hand “love the world”-for God “so loved the world that he gave his only Son”-and at the same time you must acquire interior detachment with regard to all this rich and fascinating reality that makes up “the world”.... For the form of this world is passing away “, and each of us is subject to this passing.... Christianity teaches us to understand temporal existence from the perspective of the Kingdom of God, from the perspective of eternal life. Without eternal life, temporal existence, however rich, however highly developed in all aspects, in the end brings man nothing other than the ineluctable necessity of death.
Youth does not seem the time to think about death. But since youth means the plan for the whole of life-the plan drawn up in accordance with the criterion of meaning and value during youth too it is essential to ask the question about the end.
To this question Jesus replies: “You know the commandments”... The young man who speaks to Christ naturally knows by heart the commandments of the Decalogue; indeed, he can declare with joy: “All these things I have observed from my youth”.
In his dialogue with each of you, Christ repeats the same question, “Do you know the commandments?” This question will be infallibly repeated, because the commandments form part of the Covenant between God and humanity; they form the foundation of behavior, determine the moral value of human acts, and are connected with man’s vocation to eternal life, and the establishment of God’s Kingdom here among us.
At the same time this moral code is inscribed in man’s conscience, so that those who do not know the commandments, “show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness”.
Toespraak paus Johannes Paulus II op 31 maart 1985
