Pope Leo XIV called young people to commit themselves to “the civilization of love” on Thursday, exhorting them to dedicate their talents and energies to the task of living lives of perfect Gospel witness.

“Commit yourselves, dear young people, to the civilization of love,” the pontiff said, “whose first signs you have encountered in so many examples of selfless giving, and which — in the image of Christ — transforms countless peacemakers.”

“[E]ven today,” Leo said, there are such peacemakers “committed to serving life in the most tragic situations of death.”

“Unite the best energies of your magnificent humanity,” he said, “your studies, skills, work, friendships, love and prayer, so that you can bring Saint Francis’ vision to life in many different ways.”

 

The pope made his remarks during a homily in the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels in Assisi, on the Feast of the Transfiguration, at a Mass for young people taking part in the three-day Go! Franciscan Youth Meeting from August 3-6.

Go! 2026 is organized by the Friars Minor of Assisi with the Diocese of Assisi – Nocera Umbra – Gualdo Tadino and Foligno and the City of Assisi, and promoted by the General Ministers of the Franciscan Families.

It brings together thousands of young people between the ages of 18 and 33 from across Europe to listen and dialogue with one another, experience formation, prayer and celebration.

The event is supported by the Italian National Committee for the Celebration of the Eighth Centenary of the Death of St. Francis of Assisi, who died 800 years ago this coming October 3.

“Today,” Leo told young people, “we contemplate Jesus, who is transfigured precisely in conversation with the Father, with those who preceded him — Moses and Elijah — and with his contemporaries, the disciples.”

“The Church exists to lead us into this dynamic of listening and decision-making,” the pontiff said, “in which we come to understand for whom we are to live and how we are to live.”

Leo said the Church is also “the community in which we learn to discern the voice of God, which never simply coincides with our own opinions, and to dare to obey the Holy Spirit, who makes bold and creative all those who choose to follow Jesus.”

“While we are ‘disfigured’ by separating ourselves from him and from others,” Leo said, “we are transfigured through the bonds that nourish and call us to life.”

The pontiff also had special words for the young people steeped in Franciscan spirituality, “s among the most attentive to restoring fundamental relationships with God and with all his creatures,” he said.

“Today,” he said, “more than ever, this is a harmony that needs to be safeguarded and cultivated.”

The pope noted that St. Francis – the great religious founder who renounced a life of wealth and privileged immersed in worldly affairs – and his partner in mission, St. Clare of Assisi, present a model for young people today.

“Stepping away from the culture of power and tearing down the walls that divide human beings is never a betrayal of family, city, or tradition,” Leo said.

“Instead,” the pontiff said, “it means freeing them from their ghosts, from enemies invented out of fear or ignorance and from the violence with which people seek to impose their own limited order on a reality that surpasses us on every side.

“To trust in God is to rediscover, like Francis and Clare, a world of brothers and sisters to cherish and serve, not to exploit and dominate,” he said, “not a world to defend, but to embrace.”

 

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