(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 26.06.2025) – On Tuesday morning, June 24, on the occasion of the Jubilee of Seminarians, Pope Leo XIV gave a meditation to hundreds of seminarians who had come to Rome from different parts of the world. The Holy Father addressed topics of particular interest to those preparing for the ministerial priesthood in some of the seminaries of the Catholic Church.
Given its value, we offer below the English translation of the Pontiff’s meditation.
* * *
Thank you, thank you all!
In the Name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Peace be with you!
Eminences, Excellencies, Formators and, especially, all of you, Seminarians. Good morning to all!
I am very happy to meet you, and I thank all of you, seminarians and formators, for your warm presence. Thank you, first of all, for your joy and enthusiasm. Thank you because with your energy you fuel the flame of hope in the life of the Church!
Today you are not only pilgrims, but also witnesses of hope: you bear witness to it for me and for everyone, because you have allowed yourselves to be drawn into the fascinating adventure of the priestly vocation in a difficult time. You have accepted the call to become gentle and strong heralds of the Word that saves, servants of an open Church and a Church on missionary outreach.
And I also say a word in Spanish, thank you for having courageously accepted the Lord’s invitation to follow, to be a disciple, to enter the seminary. We must be courageous and not afraid.
To Christ who calls, you are saying «yes”, with humility and courage; and this «here I am» that is addressed to Him, germinates in the life of the Church and allows itself to be accompanied along the necessary path of discernment and formation.
Jesus, as you know, calls you first and foremost to live an experience of friendship with Him and with your fellow climbers (cf. Mark 3:13); an experience destined to grow permanently even after Ordination and which involves all aspects of life. In fact, there is nothing in you that must be discarded, but, rather, all must be embraced and transformed into the logic of the grain of wheat, in order to become happy people and priests, «bridges, and not obstacles to the encounter with Christ for all those who approach you. Yes, He must increase and we must decrease, so that we may be shepherds according to His Heart [1].
Speaking of the Heart of Jesus Christ, how can we fail to recall the Encyclical Dilexit Nos given to us by our beloved Pope Francis? [2] Precisely in this time in which you are living, that is, the time of formation and discernment, it is important to focus your attention on the center, on the «engine» of your entire journey: the heart! The seminary, whatever its form, must be a school of affections. Today, particularly, in a social and cultural context marked by conflict and narcissism, we need to learn to love and to do as Jesus did [3].
As Christ loved with a man’s heart [4], you are called to love with the Heart of Christ! To love with Jesus’ heart. But to learn this art one must work in one’s interiority, where God makes His voice heard and from where the deepest decisions come; but which is also a place of tension and struggle (cf. Mark 7:14-23), which must be transformed so that our whole humanity may smell of the Gospel. The first work, therefore, must be done within our interiority. Remember well St. Augustine’s invitation to return to the heart, because there we find the traces of God. Descending into the heart can sometimes frighten us, because there, too, there are wounds. Do not be afraid to care for them, let yourselves be helped, because precisely from these wounds the capacity will be born to be with those who suffer.
Without an interior life, spiritual life is also impossible, because God speaks to us precisely there, in the heart. God speaks to us in our hearts; we must learn to listen to Him. Part of this interior work is also training in learning to recognize the movements of the heart: not only the rapid and immediate emotions that characterize the souls of young people, but above all the feelings, which help them discover the direction of their lives. If you learn to know your hearts, you will be increasingly authentic and will no longer need to wear masks. And the privileged path that leads us to interiority is prayer: in an age in which we are hyperconnected, it is increasingly difficult to experience silence and solitude. Without the encounter with Him, we cannot even truly know ourselves.
I invite you to invoke the Holy Spirit frequently, so that He may form within you a docile heart, capable of grasping the presence of God, also by listening to the voices of nature and of art, of poetry, of literature [5] and of music, as well as of the human sciences [6]. In the rigorous commitment to theological study, know how to listen with an open mind and heart to the voices of culture, such as the recent challenges of artificial intelligence and those of social networks [7]. Above all, as Jesus did, know how to listen to the cry, often silent, of the little ones, of the poor and the oppressed, and of so many, especially young people, who are searching for meaning in their lives.
If you guard your heart, with daily moments of silence, meditation, and prayer, you will be able to learn the art of discernment. This, too, is an important task: learning to discern. When we are young, we carry within us many desires, many dreams, and ambitions. Our hearts are often cluttered, and we often feel confused. Instead, following the model of the Virgin Mary, our interiority must be capable of guarding and meditating. Capable of «sybilline,» as the Evangelist Luke writes (2:19. 51): gathering the fragments [8]. Guard yourselves against superficiality and gather the fragments of life in prayer and meditation, asking yourselves: What does what I am experiencing teach me? What does it say to my path? Where is the Lord leading me?
Dearly beloved, have a meek and humble heart like that of Jesus (cf. Matthew 11:29). Following the example of the Apostle Paul (cf. Philippians 2:5ff.), may we embrace the sentiments of Christ, in order to progress in human maturity, especially emotional and relational. It is important, indeed necessary, from the time of the seminary onward, to invest heavily in human maturity, rejecting all disguise and hypocrisy. With our eyes fixed on Jesus, we must learn to give name and voice even to sadness, fear, anguish, and indignation, bringing all of this into a relationship with God. Crises, limitations, and weaknesses should not be hidden, but, rather, are opportunities for grace and paschal experience.
In a world where ingratitude and a thirst for power are often present, where the logic of waste sometimes seems to prevail, you are called to bear witness to the gratitude and gratuitousness of Christ, to the joy and gladness, to the tenderness and mercy of His Heart. Practice the style of welcome and closeness, of generous and selfless service, allowing the Holy Spirit to «anoint» your humanity even before Ordination.
The Heart of Christ is animated by immense compassion: He is the Good Samaritan of humanity and He says to us, «Go and do likewise» (Luke 10:37). This compassion drives Him to break the bread of the Word and to share it with the multitude (cf. Mark 6:30-44), hinting at the gesture of the Upper Room and the Cross, when He would give Himself up to be eaten, and He tells us: «You give them something to eat» (Mark 6:37), that is, make your life a gift of love.
Dear seminarians, the wisdom of the Holy Church, assisted by the Holy Spirit, always seeks, throughout time, the most appropriate means for the formation of ordained ministers, according to the needs of the places. In this commitment, what is your task? It is to never lower your standards, not to conform, not to be passive recipients of grace, but to be passionate about priestly life, living in the present and looking to the future with a prophetic heart. I hope that this meeting of ours will help each of you to deepen your personal dialogue with the Lord, in which you may ask Him to assimilate ever more deeply the sentiments of Christ, the sentiments of His Heart, that Heart that beats with love for you and for all humanity. Good journey! I accompany you with my blessing.
Notes:
[1] Cf. Saint John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis (March 25, 1992), 43. [2] Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos, on the human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus Christ (October 24, 2024). [3] Cf. Ibid., 17. [4] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 22. [5] Cf. Francis, Letter on the role of literature in formation, July 17, 2024. [6] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 62. [7] Congregation for the Clergy, Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, The gift of the priestly vocation (December 8, 2016), 97. [8] Cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos, on the human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus Christ.
