Pope Leo XIV prayed with around 1 million young people in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, at a prayer vigil on Tuesday evening.
In his address, the Pope encouraged the Argentine faithful to show the world the fire of Christ’s love, which purifies our hearts and allows us to love fully.
He recalled the story in the Book of the Prophet Daniel, in which three young men were thrown into a furnace in Babylon for refusing to worship an idol.
They stood out in the crowd, who had all bowed down at the order of King Nebuchadnezzar, said the Pope. The three young men refused to renounce their faith and continue living in peace.
“What freedom there is in that response!” he said. “They knew the punishment that awaited them, but they also knew that they would find happiness only in God.”
In our own time, said Pope Leo, we face the temptations to bow down in slavery before pornography and addictive substances.
“Today too, idols arise and demand our worship: success at any cost, money, an obsession with appearance, popularity or the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure,” he said. “Do not bow down before anything that cannot give you life. And if you have ever fallen, get back up. Do not allow anything or anyone to take away the freedom God has given you.”
The Pope then reflected on what it means to live as Christ’s disciples: “everyone toward Christ, everyone with Christ, everyone like Christ.”
Even if someone has not prayed in a long time or drifted from the Church, they can still draw near to the Church, even if their life is in shambles.
“Whoever you are and whatever you may have done, Jesus Christ knows you, Jesus Christ loves you, and wants you to be close to Him,” he said.
The Pope picked up a question that changed the life of one of the young people who offered her testimony: “Who told you that it was too late?”
Rather, he said, it is never too late to answer God’s call, since no one has “fallen so low that Christ cannot raise them up.”
Pope Leo XIV noted that, as the three young men walked around in the furnace, one of them raised a prayer to God: “With a contrite heart and a humble spirit may we be accepted.”
Even as they defied the king, the men recognized their need for God’s mercy.
“Christ loves us as we are, but His love is too great to leave us prisoners of sin, of what destroys us,” he said. “The fire He came to bring has the power to break our chains and restore our freedom to love.”
Pope Leo invited young people to become saints, who he said bore their weaknesses but allowed God’s grace to transform their lives.
“The Lord gives us so many opportunities to be like Him,” he said. “May your lives become pages of the Gospel, written in the ink of mercy, so that those who meet you may recognize in you something of the love and joy of Jesus.”
During the prayer vigil, Pope Leo heard the testimonies over several young people and offered his thoughts.
Asked how to overcome frustrations and personal limitations, the Pope recalled St. Ignatius of Loyola’s saying: “Act as if everything depended on you, knowing that in reality everything depends on God.”
Responding to a question about the value of work, he pointed to the hidden years of Jesus’ life in which the Son of God learned a trade and worked as a carpenter.
“When you work, study, or spend time with your friends, do so with love and offer it to the Lord,” he said. “In this way, your work too becomes prayer and a path to holiness.”
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