Desperate for Springtime

I'm almost finished with Witness to Hope - George Weigle's biography of JPII - and as I was reading the other night I noticed this quote from John Paul, when he spoke to the United Nations in NY, which I felt fits with what I just posted about - our desperate need for a new springtime.

"We must not be afraid of the future. We must not be afraid of man. It is no accident that we are here. Each and every human person has been reated in the "image and likeness" on the One who is the origin of all that is. We have within us the capacities for wisdom and virtue. With these gifts, and with the help of God's grace, we can build in the next century and the next millennium a civilization worthy of the human person, a true culture of freedom. We can and we must do so! And in doing so, we shall see that the tears of this century [1900s] have prepared the ground for a new springtime of the human spirit"

Here is to hope! For a new spring!