At audience Oct. 15, Pope Leo reflected on how Christ’s resurrection fulfills the desires of every human heart
VATICAN CITY — Power, possessions and rank do not satisfy the deep desire for real meaning in life, Pope Leo XIV said.
“It is only the resurrected Jesus who can give the true and lasting peace that sustains and fills us,” the pope said in English Oct. 15 during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
“We are not truly satisfied with achievements and passing certainties of this world,” he said, “because we are created in the image and likeness of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit we recognize an inexhaustible longing in our hearts for something more.”
In his ongoing series of audience talks on the Jubilee theme, “Jesus Christ our Hope,” Pope Leo reflected on how Christ’s resurrection fulfills the desires of every human heart.
“We live busy lives, we concentrate on achieving results, and we even attain lofty, prestigious goals,” he said in his main address in Italian.
“We would like to be happy, and yet it is very difficult to be happy in a continuous way, without any shadows,” he said. “We feel deep down that we are always missing something.”
However, he said, “we were not created for lack, but for fullness, to rejoice in life, and life in abundance.”
“This deep desire in our hearts can find its ultimate answer not in roles, not in power, not in having, but in the certainty that there is someone who guarantees this constitutive impulse of our humanity; in the awareness that this expectation will not be disappointed or thwarted,” the pope said.
The risen Jesus “is the wellspring that satisfies our thirst, the infinite thirst for fullness that the Holy Spirit imbues into our hearts,” he said. “Indeed, the resurrection of Christ is not a simple event of human history, but the event that transformed it from within.”
Just like water quenches thirst, refreshes, irrigates and renders fertile “what would otherwise remain barren,” he said, “the Risen One is the living wellspring” that always “stays pure and ready for anyone who is thirsty.”
Only Jesus “responds to the deepest questions of our heart: Is there really a destination for us? Does our existence have any meaning? And the suffering of so many innocents, how can it be redeemed?” he said.
“The risen Jesus does not bestow upon us an answer ‘from above,’ but becomes our companion on this often arduous, painful and mysterious journey,” he said. “Only He can fill our empty flask when our thirst becomes unbearable.”
Jesus is also “the destination of our journey. Without His love, the voyage of life would become wandering without a goal, a tragic mistake with a missed destination,” he said.
Human beings are “fragile creatures,” who make mistakes, Pope Leo said. But the faithful can “rise again” with the help of the Risen One who “guarantees our arrival, leading us home, where we are awaited, loved, saved.”
To journey with Jesus “means to experience being sustained despite everything, to have our thirst quenched and to be refreshed in the hardships and struggles that, like heavy stones, threaten to block or divert our history,” he said.
“In a world struggling with fatigue and despair, let us be signs of hope, peace and joy of the risen Christ,” he added.
