By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Let the Jubilee of Youth be more than an event for making memories and sharing pictures; be sure to encounter Christ and share the Good News, Pope Leo XIV told a group of young people.
“I would like everything you experience during these days to be cherished in your hearts forever, but don’t keep it just for yourselves,” he told the group from Peru during an audience at the Vatican July 28, the start of the weeklong Jubilee and the day Peru commemorates its independence from Spanish colonial rule.
He welcomed them to Rome, where they came as “pilgrims of hope,” and he recognized the sacrifice and hard work of their families and communities that had made the journey possible.
“We must learn to share,” he said. “Please, don’t let all of this remain just a memory, just some nice photos, just something from the past.”
He asked that when they return home after the jubilee celebrations, they share “the joy and strength of the Gospel, with the Good News of Jesus Christ.”
Each person by himself or herself is small, “but we are not alone; the Lord has wanted us to be part of a large family, the family of the church,” he said, so that, like clusters of grapes on the vine, “we can grow and bear fruit, aided by the Lord’s grace.”
During this joyful and important event for young people from around the world, he said, “all of you will have the beautiful experience of feeling part of the people of God, part of the universal church, which encompasses and embraces the whole earth, without distinction of race, language or nation.”
“Love and serve freely, in everyday life, in small things, in hidden ways, because you have experienced the joy of being loved first, and because you have received everything freely from God our Father,” the pope said.
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