“The Cross of Jesus is the greatest discovery of life, the value that modifies all values,” said Pope Leo XIV on Saturday, when he met once again with the pilgrims at a new jubilee audience, this time dedicated to the theme “To wait is to excavar. Elena Empress Empress”, based on the Gospel of Matthew 13,44.
The jubilee audience took place at 10:00 a.m. in the Plaza de San Pedro in the Vatican, where groups of pilgrims and faithful arrived to participate in this cycle of meetings inaugurated by Pope Francis in the framework of the Jubileo de La Esperanza, which are held every 15 days and add to the general audiences of Wednesday.
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In his speech, focused on the theme “waiting is excavating. Empress Elena”, Pope Leo XIV referred to “a particular aspect of hope.”
To do this, he began his speech with a memory of childhood: “When we were children, put their hands on the ground had a special charm. We remember it and perhaps we still observe it: it is good for us to observe the game of children! Cavar on earth, break the hard bark of the world and see what is underneath,” he said.
And although he clarified that in the parable of the treasure in the field, what Jesus describes “is no longer a game of children”; He considered that “the joy of surprise is the same.”
Hope is revived “when we go beyond the surface”
“And the Lord tells us: This is the Kingdom of God. Moreover: this is the Kingdom of God. Hope is revived when we excavate and break the cortex of reality, when we go beyond the surface,” he observed.
In that sense, he recalled that, “as soon as they had the freedom to live publicly as Christians, Jesus’ disciples began to dig, particularly in the places of their passion, death and resurrection.”
And focusing on the figure of Flavia Julia Elena, mother of Emperor Constantine, to whom the tradition remembers her as “the soul of those investigations”, defined her as “a woman who seeks. A woman who excavates. The treasure who turns on the hope is, in fact, the life of Jesus: you have to follow her footprints,” he said.
“How many other things could a empress have done! What noble places could have preferred to the peripheral Jerusalem. How many pleasures and honors of the court,” he considered.
Therefore, he warned that we also, “we can accommodate in the positions achieved and in the wealth” that give security, but warned that “the joy we had of children is lost, that desire to excavate and invent that it makes every day new.”
Noting that ‘invent’ in Latin means ‘find’, the Holy Father said that “Elena’s great ‘invention’ was the finding of the Holy Cross.”
“Here is the hidden treasure to sell everything!” He exclaimed, emphasizing that “the cross of Jesus is the greatest discovery of life, the value that modifies all values.”
Pope Leo XIV stopped at the humble origin of Elena, who “had taken his own cross for a long time,” suffering pain and disappointments. However, he rescued that “Elena was always faithful to herself: a woman in search of something. He had decided to convert to Christianity and always practiced charity, never forgetting the humble of which she herself proceeded.”
In this regard, he reflected: “So much dignity and fidelity to consciousness, dear brothers and sisters, change the world today: they approach the treasure, such as the farmer’s work.”
“Cultivating one’s heart requires effort. It is the greatest work. But Cavando is, getting off more and more to that man who stripped himself to do like us. His cross is under the cortex of our land,” he insisted.
“We can walk with pride, distractedly trampling the treasure under our feet. If, on the other hand, we become children, we will know another kingdom, another force. God is always under us, to get up high,” he concluded.
After the speech, the Holy Father directed greetings to the pilgrims and visitors from different countries, as well as the sick, freshly married and young. On the eve of the Nativity Party of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he urged them to “always walk, like Mary, on the paths of the Lord.” To all of them he taught his blessing.
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.