The Vatican published a video message from the pontiff on Aug. 2 for Ecuador’s seventh National Youth Day.
Pope Leo XIV speaks via a video address to the Eucharistic pilgrimage at its concluding Mass in Philadelphia, July 5, 2026. | Credit: The Holy See
Pope Leo XIV has encouraged young Ecuadorian Catholics to follow Christ with determination and to reflect his love and mercy to the world.
The Vatican published a video message from Leo for Ecuador’s seventh National Youth Day on Aug. 2, the final day of the event that began on July 31 in Ibarra. In the message, the pope greeted those present and urged them to listen to Christ’s call for their lives.
“I encourage you to listen to the Lordʼs call and to follow him with determination,” the pope said in his message. “An encounter with Jesus Christ fills the heart with joy and gives us the strength to be witnesses of his love and his mercy.”
Leo also asked them to allow themselves to be transformed by Christ’s love and to work for peace in today’s world.
“Allow yourselves to be transformed by his love and be promoters of forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace.”
“The Church needs your joy, your courage, and your witness so that many others may come to know Christ,” Leo added.
The National Youth Day in Ecuador (“Jornada Nacional de la Juventud”) is the country’s own adaptation of World Youth Day, gathering dioceses nationwide for catechesis, worship, and fellowship. The motto for this year’s gathering is drawn from John 16:33: “Take courage; I have conquered the world.”
Amid a rise in homicides nationwide, the Ecuadorian bishops renewed the country’s consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in June. In 1874, Ecuador became the first country to be officially consecrated to the Sacred Heart.
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Vatican City, Nov 26, 2017 / 06:07 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday Pope Francis said that when the Final Judgment comes, what will matter most is how much we loved God and others, especially through daily, concrete acts of charity toward those most in need.
“At the end of our life we will be judged on love, that is, on our concrete commitment to love and serve Jesus in the least of our brothers and the needy,” the Pope said Nov. 26.
“Jesus will come at the end of time to judge all the nations, but he (also) comes to us every day, in so many ways, and asks us to welcome him.”
Pope Francis spoke to around 30,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square before leading the Angelus prayer. Celebrating the Solemnity of Christ the King, the Pope offered a reflection on the Last Judgment and Jesus’ “criteria” for entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
He explained how at the second coming, when Jesus appears “in divine glory,” he will summon all of humanity to him, separating the righteous from the unrighteous. And to the righteous he will say: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive as inheritance the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”
This is because: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you dressed me, sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to see me.”
Francis noted how when Jesus speaks about the Final Judgment to his disciples, the men are surprised by his words, because they don’t remember meeting Jesus, let alone helping him in this way. So Jesus explains what he meant: “All you did to one of these the least of my brothers, you did to me.”
“This word never ceases to hit us,” Pope Francis said, “because it reveals to what extent God’s love comes to us: to the point of being identified with us, but not when we are well, when we are healthy and happy, no, but when we are in need.”
In this way Jesus reveals “the decisive criterion of his judgment,” the Pope said, which is “concrete love for the neighbor in distress.”
We should ask the Virgin Mary to help us to not only meet Jesus in his Word and in the Eucharist, he continued, but “at the same time in the brothers and sisters suffering from hunger, illness, oppression, and injustice.”
“May our hearts welcome him into our life today, for we are welcomed by him into the eternity of his Kingdom of Light and Peace.”
After the Angelus Pope Francis expressed his sorrow for the attack on a mosque in Sinai, Egypt on Nov. 24 which killed more than 230 people and wounded hundreds more.
“I continue to pray for the many victims, for the wounded and for the whole community, so severely affected. God frees us from these tragedies and sustains the efforts of all those who work for peace, concord, and coexistence,” he said.
Just as those people were praying at the time of the attack, he then asked for a moment of silent prayer for those affected by the attack.
The Pope also recalled the beatification of Bl. Catalina de María Rodríguez, founder of the Congregation of Hermanas Esclavas of Corazón de Jesús, in Argentina on Saturday.
She lived in the 19th century and was first married. But when she became widowed she decided to consecrate herself to God and dedicate herself “to the spiritual and material care of the poorest and most vulnerable women.”
“We praise the Lord for this ‘passionate woman of the Heart of Jesus and of humanity,’” he said.
Pope Leo waving at the crowds gathered on St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee for Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly, June 1, 2025 / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
CNA Newsroom, Jun 1, 2025 / 07:31 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV declared families “the cradle of the future of humanity” as he celebrated Mass for thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly on Sunday.
Speaking to families from nearly 120 countries on a sunny morning in Rome, the pontiff emphasized the fundamental role of family relationships in God’s plan for salvation, drawing from the Gospel reading of Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper.
“Dear friends, we received life before we ever desired it,” Pope Leo XIV said in his homily on June 1.
Pope Leo XIV gcelebrates the Holy Mass Holy Mass for Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly at St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, June 1, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
“As soon as we were born, we needed others in order to live; left to ourselves, we would not have survived. Someone else saved us by caring for us in body and spirit. All of us are alive today thanks to a relationship, a free and freeing relationship of human kindness and mutual care.”
The Holy Father made an extended tour of the square in the popemobile before Mass, blessing children and greeting the crowds of families who had traveled to Rome for this major event of the Holy Year of Hope 2025.
Pope Leo XIV blesses a child from his popemobile on St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, June 1, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Marriage as measure of true love
In his homily, Pope Leo XIV emphasized that marriage represents “not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful.” He cited Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, noting that conjugal love “makes you one flesh and enables you, in the image of God, to bestow the gift of life.”
The pope highlighted several beatified married couples as exemplars for today’s world, including Louis and Zélie Martin, parents of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, and Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, who lived in Rome in the last century. He also remembered the Polish Ulma family, “parents and children, united in love and martyrdom” during World War II.
“By pointing to them as exemplary witnesses of married life, the Church tells us that today’s world needs the marriage covenant in order to know and accept God’s love and to defeat, thanks to its unifying and reconciling power, the forces that break down relationships and societies,” the pontiff said.
Practical counsel for families
Pope Leo XIV offered specific guidance to different generations present at the celebration. To parents, he recommended being “examples of integrity to your children, acting as you want them to act, educating them in freedom through obedience, always seeing the good in them and finding ways to nurture it.”
Children received counsel to “show gratitude to your parents,” with the pope noting that saying “thank you” each day “is the first way to honour your father and your mother.”
Families from nearly 120 countries wave flags and cheer during the Jubilee of Families celebration at St. Peter’s Square, as Pope Leo XIV declared families “the cradle of the future of humanity” during his homily on Sunday, June 1, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
To grandparents and elderly people, he recommended watching “over your loved ones with wisdom and compassion, and with the humility and patience that come with age.”
The Holy Father emphasized the family’s role in transmitting faith, declaring that “in the family, faith is handed on together with life, generation after generation. It is shared like food at the family table and like the love in our hearts.”
Prayer for peace amid global conflicts
Following the Mass, Pope Leo XIV led the Regina Coeli prayer, using the occasion to remember families suffering from war.
“May the Virgin Mary bless families and sustain them in their difficulties. I think especially of those who suffer because of war in the Middle East, in Ukraine and in other parts of the world,” he said.
The pontiff also commemorated the beatification of Blessed Cristofora Klomfass and 14 companion religious sisters of the Congregation of Saint Catherine Virgin and Martyr, who were killed by Soviet soldiers in 1945 in territories of present-day Poland.
“Despite the climate of hatred and terror against the Catholic faith, they continued to serve the sick and orphans,” he noted.
During his remarks, Pope Leo XIV expressed particular joy at welcoming so many children to today’s celebration, calling them sources of renewed hope. He praised grandparents and elderly people as “genuine models of faith and inspiration for young generations.”
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