At the Vigil with the Youth who met in Lisbon’s Parque Trejo within the framework of World Youth Day (WYD) 2023, Pope Francis delivered a mainly improvised message, leaving aside the text he had initially prepared.
Below is the full text of Pope Francis’ speech at the Youth Vigil in Parque Tejo:
Dear brothers and sisters: Boa noite!
It makes me happy to see them. Thank you for having traveled, for having walked, thank you for being here! And I think that the Virgin Mary also had to travel to see Elizabeth: she “departed and went without delay” (Lk 1,39). One wonders: why does Maria get up and rush to see her cousin? Sure, he just found out that her cousin is pregnant, but so is she. Why is she then going to go if no one asked her? MarÃa makes a gesture not requested, not obligatory. Mary goes because she loves, and “he who loves flies, runs and rejoices” (Imitation of Christ, III, 5). That is what makes us make love. Mary’s joy is double, she had just received the angel’s announcement that she was going to receive the Redeemer, and also the news that her cousin is pregnant.
It’s funny, instead of thinking about her, he thinks about the other. Because? Because joy is missionary, joy is not for one, it is to bring something and I ask you: you who are here, who have come to meet, to seek the message of Christ, to seek a beautiful meaning in life Are you going to keep this for yourselves or are you going to take it to the others? What do you think? I do not hear.
It is to take it to others because joy is missionary. Let’s all repeat together: joy is missionary. So I have to bring that joy to others.
But that joy that we have also others prepared us to receive it. Now let’s look back, at everything we’ve received. What we have received and have prepared, all this has prepared our hearts for joy.
All of us, if we look back, we have people who were a ray of light for life: parents, grandparents, friends, priests, religious, catechists, animators, and teachers. They are like the roots of our joy.
Now we have a second of silence and each one thinks of those who gave us something in life that are like the roots of joy.
Did they find? Did they find faces, did they find stories? That joy that came from those roots is what we have to give. Because we have roots of joy, roots of joy. And we too can be for other’s roots of joy. It is not about bringing a fleeting joy, a momentary joy. It is about bringing joy that creates roots. And I wonder: how can we become roots of joy?
Joy is not in the locked library —although you have to study, eh— but it is elsewhere, it is not kept under lock and key. Joy must be sought, it must be discovered, it must be discovered in our dialogue with others, where we have to give those roots of joy that we have received. And that sometimes tires.
I ask you a question: did you ever get tired? No Yes? I can’t hear, did you ever get tired? Think about what happens when you’re tired: You don’t feel like doing anything. As we say in Spanish, you throw away the sponge because you don’t feel like going on. And then one gives up, stops walking and falls. Do you think that a person who falls in life, who has a failure, who even makes heavy, strong mistakes, is finished? No. I can’t hear. No! What to do? I do not hear. Get up.
And there is something very nice, that I would like you to take as a souvenir today: the Alpines, who like to climb mountains, have a very nice little song, which goes like this: in the art of climbing the mountain, what matters is not not not falling but not stay down. Pretty thing.
The one who remains fallen has already retired from life, closed, closed hope, closed illusion and there he remains fallen. When we see some of our friends who are down, what do we have to do? lift it up Strong! lift it up
Look when you have to lift or help lift a person, what gesture do you make? He looks him up and down. The only opportunity, the only time that it is lawful to look at a person from top to bottom is to help them get up.
How many times, how many times do we see people who look at us like that, over their shoulders, from top to bottom. It’s sad. The only way in which it is lawful, the only situation in which it is lawful to look at a person from top to bottom is – say so – is it? Strong! To help get up.
Well, this is a bit of the path, perseverance in walking and in life, to achieve things, you have to train on the path.
Sometimes we don’t feel like walking, we don’t feel like making an effort, we cheat on exams because we don’t want to study and we don’t achieve success.
I don’t know if some like soccer. I like it. Behind a goal, what is there? Lots of training. Behind a success, what is there? Lots of training. In life, one cannot always do what one wants, but rather what the vocation that I have inside —everyone has their own vocation— leads us to do. Walking, if I fall, get up or have someone help me get up, not stay down and train myself, train myself along the way. And all this is possible not because we take courses on the road, there is no course to teach us to walk in life, that is learned, learned from parents, learned from grandparents, learned from friends, taking from the hand each other.
In life, you learn and that is training along the way. I leave you with this idea: walk and if you fall get up, walk with a goal, and train every day in life. Nothing in life is free, everything is paid.
There is only one thing free: the love of Jesus. So with this free thing that we have, the love of Jesus, and with the desire to walk, let’s walk in hope, let’s look at our roots and go forward, without fear, without fear. Do not be afraid. Thank you. Bye.