From the Website of Vatican
links https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-10/pope-leo-xiv-jubilee-audience-hope-migrants-missionaries.html
Pope Leo at Jubilee Audience: ‘To Hope is to Choose’
At
the Jubilee Audience of Migrants and the Missionary World, the Pope
recalls St. Clare of Assisi as a model of courageous Gospel living.
Drawing from the day’s Gospel reading (Lk 16:13–14), the Pope spoke about the challenge of serving God rather than wealth, and highlighted St Clare of Assisi as a shining example of youthful faith and radical discipleship.
“To Hope is to Choose”
Commenting
on the passage in which some listeners mock Jesus’ teaching on poverty,
Pope Leo noted that “his discourse on poverty seemed absurd to them.
More precisely, they felt personally affected because of their
attachment to money.”
Addressing the thousands of pilgrims
present, he underlined that the Jubilee is a “time of concrete hope,” a
moment when hearts can find forgiveness and mercy, so that everything
can begin anew.”
“In this year,” he said, “we must choose whom we will serve: justice or injustice, God or money.”
The
Pope explained that authentic hope is inseparable from personal
decision. “To hope is to choose,” he said, pointing out two key aspects:
first, that “the world changes if we change,” and second, that those
who refuse to choose risk falling into despair.
“One of the most
common consequences of spiritual sadness — that is, of acedia — is to
choose nothing,” he warned. “The person who experiences it is seized by
an interior laziness that is worse than death. To hope, on the other
hand, is to choose.”
Clare of Assisi: A model of courageous choice
The
Pope then turned to the example of St Clare of Assisi, describing her
as “a courageous and countercultural young woman” who, with the grace of
God, made a decisive choice for the Gospel.
Recalling how
Francis of Assisi embraced evangelical poverty even at the cost of
breaking with his family, the Pope noted that Clare’s decision was “even
more striking: a young woman who wanted to be like Francis, who wanted
to live, as a woman, free like those brothers.”
He observed that
even in a city that considered itself Christian, Clare’s radical
embrace of the Gospel appeared revolutionary. “Then, as today, one must
choose! Clare chose, and this gives us great hope,” he said.
The
Pope pointed to two lasting fruits of her decision: the inspiration she
gave to many other young women to follow Christ in poverty, and the
enduring witness of her choice, which “was not like a flash in the pan,
but has endured through time, down to us.”
Young people drawn by authentic choices
Quoting
Jesus’ words, “You cannot serve two masters,” Pope Leo noted that the
Church remains young and vibrant when it lives the Gospel with
authenticity.
“Clare of Assisi reminds us that the Gospel
appeals to the young,” he said. “Young people like those who have made
choices and live the consequences of their choices. And this makes
others want to choose as well. It is a holy imitation: one does not
become ‘photocopies,’ but each person — when he or she chooses the
Gospel — chooses himself or herself. One loses oneself and finds
oneself.”
A Church that serves the Kingdom
Pope Leo concluded his catechesis with a prayer for young people and for the entire Church.
“Let
us pray,” he said, “to be a Church that does not serve money or itself,
but the Kingdom of God and his justice. A Church that, like Saint
Clare, has the courage to inhabit the city in a different way. This
gives hope!
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