Acta Benedicti Pp. XVI 555

hostility, something dangerous; a poison which threatens to corrode what is

good, reshape who we are, and distort the purpose for which we have been

created. Examples abound, as you yourselves know. Among the more pre-

valent are alcohol and drug abuse, and the exaltation of violence and sexual

degradation, often presented through television and the internet as entertain-

ment. I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with people who

actually do suffer violence and sexual exploitation "explain" that these tra-

gedies, portrayed in virtual form, are considered merely "entertainment"?

There is also something sinister which stems from the fact that freedom

and tolerance are so often separated from truth. This is fuelled by the notion,

widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives.

Relativism, by indiscriminately giving value to practically everything, has

made "experience" all-important. Yet, experiences, detached from any con-

sideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to

moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-

respect, and even to despair.

Dear friends, life is not governed by chance; it is not random. Your very

existence has been willed by God, blessed and given a purpose! 17 Life is not

just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are.

It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we

make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this - in

truth, in goodness, and in beauty - that we find happiness and joy. Do not

be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of

undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty

usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.

Christ offers more! Indeed he offers everything! Only he who is the Truth

can be the Way and hence also the Life. Thus the "way" which the Apostles

brought to the ends of the earth is life in Christ. This is the life of the Church.

And the entrance to this life, to the Christian way, is Baptism.

This evening I wish therefore to recall briefly something of our under-

standing of Baptism before tomorrow considering the Holy Spirit. On the day

of your Baptism, God drew you into his holiness.18 You were adopted as a son

or daughter of the Father. You were incorporated into Christ. You were

17 Cfr Gen 1:28. 18 Cfr 2 Pet 1:4.