Pope to young people: ‘The light of the Spirit enlightens and comforts’

Jean-Charles Putzolu – Paris

The Stade de France, the largest stadium in France, hadn’t seen such a gathering since it opened in 1998. With a capacity of 80,000, it was packed on Friday evening for Pope Leo XIV’s vigil with young people from Paris and across France. They showed up in all their diversity: Rural and urban, workers, students, young professionals and manual workers, united by their faith and their desire to hear the Pope’s words.

The evening began with a festive programme of testimonies, songs and artistic performances. The young people moved from celebration to Caccini’s Ave Maria, sung by Monroe and 2,500 choristers. In his welcome to Leo XIV as he arrived in the stadium, Bishop Etienne Guillet described it as the ‘stadium of all France’, highlighting the cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic and multicultural character of his diocese and of the 80,000 young people gathered there.

Before the Pope, a series of tableaux revisited the lives of numerous French saints, including Thérèse of Lisieux, Charles de Foucauld, Louis and Zélie Martin, Frédéric Ozanam, Léonie Aviat, Pierre-Julien Eymard, Jean-Marie Vianney, Catherine Labouré, Bernadette Soubirous, Francis de Sales, Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marillac, John Eudes, Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, Bernard of Clairvaux and Germaine of Pibrac.

The performance ended with fireworks on the roof of the Stade and an outpouring of joy from the young people, who chanted ‘Leo, Leo’. The Pope responded with smiles and waves.

The multi-faith environment

Two young people then shared their testimonies. Chloé, a pharmacology student involved in work in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, asked the Pope how she could share her faith with people of other religions.

“We are all part of this spiritual dynamic,” Leo replied. “That so many people are strangers to the question of God is indeed a problem,” the Successor of Peter continued, “but so too is the fact that so many are strangers to the question of humanity.” He lamented that many people take no interest in those around them, despise the poor and reject those who are vulnerable and sick, “thinking that each person is worth only what they produce”.

The Bishop of Rome encouraged Chloé to persevere in her work in disadvantaged neighbourhoods: “It is there, in the reality of everyday life, and sometimes in the midst of difficulties, that your faith becomes a vibrant witness to hope,” he said, in a spirit of fraternity with “those who do not share our faith”.

Leo XIV also cited as an example the encounters between young people from Mediterranean countries organised in recent years, describing them as an encouraging sign of fraternity.

Read the full addresses of Pope Leo during the Prayer Vigil

The desire to commit

François, who comes from a rural background, is studying agronomy and is a scout leader. Keen to make a commitment, he asked how he could discern the direction of his life and give himself faithfully to it.

“Commit yourself to the service of peace, which helps us to grow,” the Holy Father replied. Commitment transforms “fears into hope, and complaints into responsible engagement’, while ‘our wounds then find consolation and redemption”.

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Anxiety and uncertainty, the Pope continued, which can be experienced as “obstacles to your enthusiasm”, instead reveal the precariousness of plans for the future, the provisional nature of emotional relationships, the fragility of human bonds, screen fatigue and concerns about climate change and the economic and international situation.

“We must listen carefully to these feelings,” Leo XIV said, and keep our hearts open to the suffering of our peers.

Finally, the Holy Father addressed those who believe they are “hearing the call to follow Jesus” through the priesthood or consecrated life. “The Church in France needs you so much,” he said. “Do not be afraid of this call!”

Veneration of the Tunic of Argenteuil

After the two responses, the assembly fell silent in prayer for a time of veneration of the Holy Tunic of Argenteuil, which had been brought specially to the Stade de France for the young people.

“Let us look at the two relics before us,” the Holy Father said, “the tunic and the cross.” He continued by reflecting on these two signs of the Passion: “The cross, an instrument of death, becomes a sign of hope.”

The Tunic, which was taken from Jesus, clothes the believer “in the white robe, washed in the blood of the Lamb”. The tunic and the cross, the Pope concluded, “represent us, the Church born from the life of God given to the world”.

The Pope’s prayer

Building his appeal to the young people around three injunctions, Leo XIV said: “avoid, reach out and fight”.

First, ‘avoid’ pride, vanity, violence and greed, because these are feelings “that seize us and possess us”.

Second, ‘reach towards’ justice, piety, faith, charity, patience and gentleness, so as to move “towards what is better”, to seek virtue, the strength that makes us good and true, and to walk towards holiness.

The third follows from the first two. To avoid and to reach towards, the Pope explained, is the struggle of faith, “that is, the commitment to live according to the Gospel as disciples of Jesus”.

This is in no way a struggle against others, the Pope stressed. Such a struggle “does not use the weapons of violence, contempt or oppression. Our only weapon is that of self-giving love”.

In the face of the “forces that oppose our relationship with God”, and of the “powers that seek to divide people and peoples”, the light of the Holy Spirit enlightens and comforts.

The Pope ended with an invitation to the 80,000 young people gathered at the Stade de France: “Let us choose together the virtues we must develop in order to follow the Lord.”

Watch the full video of the Prayer Vigil with Young People at the “Stade de France”

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