Madrid, Spain, August 18, 2011 (CNA/EWTN News)

- Archbishop-designate of Philadelphia Charles J. Chaput told thousands of young people gathered in Madrid for World Youth Day that an authentic relationship with Christ isn't based purely on emotions.

"Ultimately, it will not be how you feel that will determine how genuine and profound your encounter with Jesus is," he told pilgrims.

"Instead, it will be determined by how much you are transformed into Him and how much you burn in the desire to bring Him to others, by announcing the Gospel, by serving the poor and the needy, by defending the unborn, by securing a culture that is not hostile to the growth of Christian families," he said.

Prayer, Scripture, and sacred reading are the best ways to begin your encounter with Christ.

Here are what Mother Teresa and Pope Benedict XVI have to say about this.

Mother Teresa wrote to her lay co-workers (in 1996): We need this deep connection with God in our daily life. How can we obtain it? By prayer (emphasis added).”

Meeting Christ is a life-changing moment, said Benedict XVI.  Benedict XVI told some 6,500 university students that happiness depends on an encounter with Christ. ”Never forget, dear young people, that your -- our -- happiness depends, in the end, on the encounter and friendship with Jesus."

In his encyclical letter, God is Love, Benedict XVI adds, “A living relationship with Christ is decisive if we are to keep on the right path, without falling into an arrogant contempt for man… or surrendering to a resignation…”

Daily reading of Sacred Scripture is vital:

Sacred Scripture isn't merely a text written in the past, but rather the word of God that has within it a personal message directed to each individual Christian. That is why it is important that every Christian live in contact and in personal dialog with the word of God, given to us in sacred Scripture."

Benedict XVI concluded by inviting believers to pray to Mary, "teacher of the spiritual life, to teach us to pray as her Son did so that our life is transformed by the light of his presence."

“One day at the corner of the street, in a solitary path, we halt; we listen, and a voice in our conscience says to us: Behold Jesus Christ. A heavenly moment, when after so many beauties which it has tasted and which had deceived it, the soul steadfastly sees the beauty which never deceives! This may be accused of being a dream by those who have not seen it, but those who have seen it can never forget it.”  Fr. Henri-Dominique Lacordaire (+1861), great Dominican preacher who refunded the Order of the Preachers in France after the French Revolution.