Vatican: full text of the catechesis of Pope Leo XIV this October 4

This Saturday, October 4, Fiesta de San Francisco de Asís, Pope Leo XIV found a multitude of faithful and pilgrims in the Plaza de San Pedro, to whom he directed a catechesis focused on the theme “waiting is to choose”, proposing as an example the life of Santa Clara de Asís, a faithful follower of the great Italian saint and founder of the second Franciscan order.

Next, the full text of the Catechesis of the Holy Father during the Jubile Hearing this Saturday:

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome all!

In the biblical text we just read (Lk 16,13-14), the evangelist points out that some people, after listening to Jesus, made fun of him. His speech on poverty seemed absurd. More precisely, they felt touched deeply because of their attachment to money.

Dear friends, they have come as pilgrims of hope, and the jubilee is a time of concrete hope, in which our heart can find forgiveness and mercy, so that everything can begin again. The jubilee also opens to the hope of a different distribution of wealth, to the possibility that the earth is everyone, because it is not really so. In this year we must choose who to serve, if justice or injustice, whether to God or money.

Waiting is choosing. This means at least two things. The most obvious is that the world changes if we change. The pilgrimage is done for this, it is an choice. The Holy Door goes through to enter a new time.

The second meaning is deeper and more subtle: waiting is to choose because who does not choose to despair. One of the most common consequences of spiritual sadness, that is, of acedia, is not to choose anything. So, who experiences it is invaded by an inner laziness that is worse than death. To wait, on the other hand, is to choose.

I would like to remember a woman who, with the grace of God, knew how to choose. A brave young woman already countercurrent: clear of Assisi. And I’m glad to talk about her precisely on the day of the San Francisco party.

We know that Francisco, when choosing evangelical poverty, had to break with his own family. But he was a man: the scandal existed, but he was minor. Clara’s choice was even more impressive: a young woman who wanted to be like Francisco, who wanted to live, as a woman, free as those brothers!

Clara understood what the Gospel asks. But even in a city that is believed Christian, the gospel taken seriously may seem like a revolution. So, as today, you have to choose! Clara chose, and this gives us great hope.

We in fact see two consequences of their courage to follow that desire: the first is that many other young people in that area found the same courage and chose the poverty of Jesus, the life of the beatitudes; The second consequence is that this choice was not like straw fire, but lasts in time, even us. Clara’s choice has inspired vocational elections worldwide and this is still doing so.

Jesus says: Two gentlemen cannot be served. Thus, the Church is young and attracts young people. Clara de Asís reminds us that the gospel likes young people. It is still like this: young people like people who have chosen and assume the consequences of their elections. And this makes others want to choose. It is a holy imitation: one does not become “photocopy”, but each one – when he chooses the gospel – chooses himself. He lost himself and finds himself. Experience shows it: it happens.

We pray, then, for young people; And let’s pray to be a church that does not serve money or herself, but to the kingdom of God and his justice. A church that, like Santa Clara de Asís, has the courage to inhabit the city differently. This gives hope!