Last week, I was in Rome and I had the privilege to meet with our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV.
I’ve been blessed to know and work with the previous three popes: St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. To be in the presence of Christ’s new vicar on earth was a joy.
I found Leo to be warm and easygoing and we had a good conversation.
He was enthusiastic about what’s happening here in Los Angeles, as I was telling him about our new vocations, the faith of our young people, all the energy and creativity in our schools and parishes, and our many ministries to the marginalized and the poor.
He was concerned about how we are doing after the wildfires earlier this year; we also talked about the challenges that we have been facing this summer on immigration. The Holy Father expressed his solidarity and support for our parishes and families.
What also came across in our meeting is his eagerness to spread the Gospel, and I was able to witness that firsthand while I was in Rome.
My visit coincided with the Jubilee of Youth. I was blessed to meet up in St. Peter’s Basilica with dozens of young pilgrims from Los Angeles.
They were among at least 1 million young people who came to Rome for the Jubilee from nearly 150 countries, according to the Vatican.
It was an amazing sight to behold: the devotion of the young people, their excitement for their friendship with Jesus, how they so clearly want their faith to define who they are and how they live.
It was another sign to me that we are living in a new moment for the Church, a season of grace and renewal.
Our new pope is a member of the Augustinian religious order and has studied the writings of St. Augustine at a deep spiritual level for years.
At the Jubilee events, you could see how his prayer and study have shaped his understanding of the hearts of our youth.
Augustine’s story is well known. As a young man, he was confused about the meaning of life, about the true path to happiness. He got lost in sin and fell far away from God.
Augustine would later write those words that we all know: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.”
This is true for Augustine. It is true for our young people and it is true for every human heart. We are made to live in relationship with God. And our hearts will be restless, we will find no peace, until we find God.
Augustine learned that the hard way. Pope Leo brings this perspective about the human heart’s desire for God to his ministry; he quoted Augustine often in his talks to the pilgrims. It’s amazing to think how a fifth-century saint’s words can speak to our hearts today.
Pope Leo understands the power of social media in young people’s lives and how that media can control them, distort their relationships, and confuse their values and sense of what is true and real.
I reflect on all this as we prepare for another school year here in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. This year, we’ll have more than 65,000 young people in our Catholic schools and more than double that number in our parish religious education programs.
Each of these young people is a soul entrusted to us by God, someone whom God created out of love. To serve these young souls is a privilege and a noble task.
The goal of Catholic education is for our young people to know Jesus, his friendship, and his promise of salvation. Our task is to open their hearts to hear the Lord’s call, and to realize that only in giving their hearts to him do they find the truth and beauty, the happiness and love, that they seek, and that God longs to give to them.
In the prayer vigil, Pope Leo urged the young pilgrims to have the courage to choose Jesus in the midst of the trials and deceptions in the world today:
“The courage to choose comes from love, which God shows us in Christ. It is he who loved us with his whole self, saving the world and thus showing us that self-giving is the way to our fulfillment. For this reason, the encounter with Jesus corresponds to the deepest longings of our hearts, because Jesus is God’s love made man. … Find the courage to make difficult choices and say to Jesus: ‘You are my life, Lord.’ ”
Pray for me, and I will pray for you.
And as we begin this new school year, let us entrust our young people to the maternal heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
