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In Assisi, Pope encourages young people to ‘touch the suffering flesh of others’
At Mass for the 2026 Franciscan Youth Meeting in Assisi, the Pope encourages young people to “overcome resignation and fear,” and “write new pages of history.”
By Tiziana Campisi
Pope Leo celebrated Mass on Thursday for the thousands of young people from across Europe gathered in Assisi for Go!,the 2026 Franciscan Youth Meeting.
At Mass in the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels, the Pope encouraged his young listeners to go “to the margins” of society, “where the injustice and arrogance of a few deny the dignity and dreams of many”.
“We are called to read the Scriptures with the Master,” Pope Leo said, “to interpret our times, and to make decisions as we walk in His footsteps. We are here to overcome resignation and fear, to untangle the doubts that hold us back just as they held back the apostles. Jesus calls us into a dialogue with His story so that we may write new pages of history.”
Assisi is a place where “everything whispers that our lives can be transformed, unleash light, and repair the world,” the Pope said, reminding his listeners that it was here in Assisi that “the transfiguration of Francis, of Clare, and then of thousands of other young people” first began.
Young people gathered for Mass with Pope Leo (@VATICAN MEDIA)
Listening and decision-making
Pope Leo began his homily by considering the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, which the Church marks today.
Jesus, the Pope said, was “transfigured precisely in conversation with the Father, with those who preceded him — Moses and Elijah — and with his contemporaries, the disciples.”
The Church exists, Pope Leo said, “to draw us into this dynamic of listening and deciding, helping us understand for whom to live and how to live.”
The Church is “the community where we learn to distinguish the voice of God”, the Pope stressed, “and to dare that obedience to the Holy Spirit that made bold and creative all those who agreed to follow Jesus.”
Embracing ‘sister poverty’
While St Francis’ choice to turn away from the world was revolutionary, St Clare’s was “even more striking”, Pope Leo said. Like Francis, Clare “wanted to live … in true freedom”, and this, the Pope explained, is the “energy” of Christianity – “that of beginnings and many fresh starts”.
All of this must be done without keeping our distance “from the wounds of the Lord,” as Pope Francis warned, Leo continued, quoting Evangelii gaudium, in which his predecessor stresses that “Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He expects us to stop looking for those personal or communal niches that allow us to keep our distance from the heart of human suffering.”
Committing to the civilization of love
Even if his listeners “might not be understood, even by those in your own home—just as happened to Saint Francis,” the Pope stressed that “stepping away from the culture of power and tearing down the walls that divide human beings is never a betrayal of family, city, or tradition.”
Rather, he said, it serves to free us “from their ghosts, from enemies invented out of fear and ignorance, and from the violence that seeks to impose its own neat little order on a reality that vastly exceeds us on every side.”
“To trust in God is to discover, like Francis and Clare, a world of brothers and sisters to be appreciated and served, not exploited and dominated,” the Pope said. “Not a world to be defended, but one to be embraced.”
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