Pope reminds youth they are 'the sign that a different world is possible'

ROME - One million young people gathered in Tor Vergata for Pope Leo XIV, who reiterated the message: "We stand with the young people of Gaza and Ukraine."

  The pontiff invited the young pilgrims to become protagonists in a time full of contradictions: “You are the sign that a different world is possible: a world of brotherhood and friendship, where conflicts are not resolved with weapons but with dialogue.”

  Exactly twenty-five years after the historic WYD of the Great Jubilee of 2000, again on the Tor Vergata esplanade, over a million young people attended the closing Mass of the most important and eagerly awaited event of the Holy Year 2025 dedicated to hope. Prevost was greeted by a huge crowd almost three months after the beginning of his pontificate.

  After the vigil, also presided over by Prevost, the young people slept on the Tor Vergata esplanade awaiting Sunday Mass. The Pope asked them to live their faith intensely: “Let us remain united to Jesus, let us remain in his friendship, always, cultivating it with prayer, adoration, Eucharistic communion, frequent confession, generous charity, as the blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis, who will soon be proclaimed saints, taught us. Aspire to great things, to holiness, wherever you are. Do not settle for less.”

  In his homily, Pope Leo emphasised that “the fullness of our existence does not depend on what we accumulate or, as we heard in the Gospel, on what we possess. Rather, it is linked to what we joyfully welcome and share…We need to lift our eyes, to look up, to the things above, to realise that everything in the world only makes sense insofar as it serves to unite us to God and to our brothers and sisters in charity, fostering in us feelings of tenderness, goodness, humility, meekness, magnanimity, forgiveness and peace, like those of Christ. And in this horizon, we will understand better and better what it means that hope does not disappoint, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

  The pontiff then reminded young people not to be afraid of “fragility”, which “is part of the wonder that we are”.

  In what was an undeniable reference to what Pope Francis said during World Youth Day in Lisbon in 2023: “Everyone is called to confront big questions that do not have a simplistic or immediate answer, but invite us to embark on a journey, to surpass ourselves, to go further, to take off, without which there can be no flight. Let us not be alarmed, then, if we find ourselves inwardly thirsty, restless, unfulfilled, longing for meaning and a future. We are not sick, we are alive!”

  “I look forward to seeing you in Seoul, concluded the Pope, in an inspiring finale to an auspicious week. “Let us continue to dream together, to hope together!”

rs