Leo XIV: “We were not created for lack, but for fullness”

At the audience in St Peter's Square, the pontiff continued the jubilee cycle of catechesis with the last segment on the Resurrection and “the challenges of today's world”. “We would like to be happy, yet it is very difficult to achieve it,” he said. The Risen Jesus is “the source that satisfies our thirst”. He is our “companion” on the journey and “the destination of our journey”.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - ‘We were not created for lack, but for fullness.’ Pope Leo XIV said this at this morning's general audience, held as usual in St Peter's Square at 10 a.m. The pontiff began the last segment of catechesis for the Jubilee year - a cycle on the theme ‘Jesus Christ our hope’ - focusing on the Resurrection and ‘the challenges of today's world’.

Today, in his reflection entitled ‘The Risen One, the living source of human hope,’ he emphasised the ‘abysmal desire of our hearts,’ which is not satisfied by ‘roles,’ ‘power,’ or ‘possessions,’ ‘but by the certainty that there is someone who guarantees this constitutive impulse of our humanity.’

Thus, in front of more than 60,000 faithful who had come from all over the world - greeted by a long tour in the popemobile before the meeting began - Prevost indicated that the intention of the catechesis is to unleash ‘the light of salvation’ of the Resurrection ‘in contact with the current human and historical reality, with its questions and challenges.’ He spoke of a ‘paradoxical situation’ that grips people's lives today. ‘Our lives are marked by countless events, full of nuances and different experiences,’ he said. Nuances that include moments of joy, gratification, fulfilment, but also stress and demotivation. ‘We live busy lives,’ and at the same time ‘suspended.’

‘We remain [...] precarious, waiting for successes and recognitions that are slow in coming or do not come at all,’ he continued. And the ‘paradoxical situation’ is that ‘we would like to be happy, yet it is very difficult to be so continuously and without shadows.’ Deep down, in every man and woman, in reality, ‘something is always missing.’ A desire for “fullness” that becomes hopeful expectation and ‘will not be disappointed or thwarted.’ ‘Sisters and brothers, the Risen Jesus is the guarantee of this arrival! He is the source that satisfies our thirst,’ continued Leo XIV in today's catechesis.

The pontiff emphasised that the Resurrection of Christ is the event that transformed human history ‘from within.’ He then illustrated the characteristics of the source of water: ‘It quenches and refreshes creatures, irrigates the earth and plants, and makes fertile and alive what would otherwise remain arid.’ It is ‘a free gift,’ in that ‘without water, one cannot live.’ In the same way, ‘the Risen One is the living source that never dries up and never changes.’ It is ‘ready’ for anyone, and the more we ‘taste’ it, the more we are “attracted” to it. An ‘inexhaustible longing’ that St Augustine expresses in his Hymn to Beauty: ‘You touched me, and I burned with desire for your peace.’

The Resurrection is, therefore, ‘a permanent source of life,’ capable of ‘offering us refreshment on our earthly journey and assuring us of perfect peace in eternity.’ ‘Only Jesus, who died and rose again, answers the deepest questions of our hearts,’ added Leo XIV. The answers do not come ‘from above,’ for He becomes ‘our companion on this often arduous, painful, mysterious journey’; He allows us to ‘experience being sustained.’ And at the same time, He is ‘the destination of our journey.’