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employment, seek to cure their pain by living in ephemeral and man-made

paradises which we know will never guarantee the human being a deep,

abiding happiness. Sometimes the African people too are constrained to flee

from themselves and abandon everything that once made up their interior

richness. Confronted with the phenomenon of rapid urbanization, they leave

the land, physically and morally: not as Abraham had done in response to the

Lord's call, but as a kind of interior exile which alienates them from their

very being, from their brothers and sisters, and from God himself.

Is this an irreversible, inevitable development? By no means! More than

ever, we must "hope against all hope".7 Here I wish to acknowledge with

appreciation and gratitude the remarkable work done by countless associa-

tions that promote the life of faith and the practice of charity. May they be

warmly thanked! May they find in the word of God renewed strength to carry

out their projects for the integral development of the human person in Africa,

especially in Cameroon! The first priority will consist in restoring a sense of

the acceptance of life as a gift from God. According to both Sacred Scripture

and the wisest traditions of your continent, the arrival of a child is always a

gift, a blessing from God. Today it is high time to place greater emphasis on

this: every human being, every tiny human person, however weak, is created

"in the image and likeness of God".8 Every person must live! Death must not

prevail over life! Death will never have the last word!

Sons and daughters of Africa, do not be afraid to believe, to hope, and to

love; do not be afraid to say that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life,

and that we can be saved by him alone. Saint Paul is indeed an inspired

author given to the Church by the Holy Spirit as a "teacher of nations"9 when

he tells us that Abraham, "hoping against hope, believed that he should

become the father of many nations; as he had been told, 'So shall your

descendants be'".10 "Hoping against hope": is this not a magnificent descrip-

tion of a Christian? Africa is called to hope through you and in you! With

Jesus Christ, who trod the African soil, Africa can become the continent of

hope! We are all members of the peoples that God gave to Abraham as his

descendants. Each and every one of us was thought, willed and loved by God.

Each and every one of us has a role to play in the plan of God: Father, Son

3 0 O t t o b r e 2 0 0 9 - 0 9 : 3 6 p a g i n a 2 7 9 e : / 0 6 9 1 _ 9/L a v o r o/Ac t a _Ap r i l e _ 9 . 3 d GRECCO

7 Rom 4, 18. 8 Gen 1, 27. 9 1 Tim 2, 7. 10 Rom 4, 18.