Fr. Harrison Ayre

I am struggling, perhaps more than at any point since joining this platform and becoming a Vaticanista, to find the words for what we lived tonight. Pope Leo XIV met with more than a million young people in Buenos Aires just now. He listened to a young man who overcame drug addiction after the Church welcomed him, fed him and gave him somewhere to sleep. He listened to a young woman who resisted, and then freely embraced, her vocation to religious life — discovering that what she had considered arriving too late was really the story of “a God who knows how to wait.” He kissed babies. He listened as young Argentines sang beloved Catholic songs such as “Maranatha.” Young content creators spoke about Martín Fierro. There was contemporary tango, folkloric dancing and Nahuel Pennisi singing one of the great songs of Argentine culture: “Who says all is lost? I come to offer my heart.” There were candles, flags, tears, laughter and a sea of young people who had arrived with movements, parishes and families — and many who came alone. Pope Leo drew from Pope Francis’ unforgettable invitation to a Church for “everyone, everyone, everyone,” saying he wanted to use it as an inspiration for “what it means to live as disciples of Jesus: everyone toward Christ, everyone with Christ, everyone like Christ.” He spoke to those raised close to the Church and those only now beginning to seek Christ; to those who had stopped praying, walked away or been wounded by people who should have accompanied them. “There is a place for you in the Church, with your questions, your wounds and your story,” he told them. “This is your home too.” It will take me some time to articulate just how extraordinary these past few days have been for me. I have always been proud to be Argentine. After these days, I am even more so. But pride cannot be the only fruit of what we have lived. When he arrived, Pope Leo reminded us that “no generation builds its homeland from scratch. It inherits it.” He then expressed a hope that now feels like a task entrusted to every Argentine: “May those who come after you inherit a united homeland, worthy of its history and the possibilities it holds.” Tonight, for a few hours at least, that united homeland felt possible. Now comes the harder part: carrying home the joy, setting aside the ideological contempt that has wounded us for too long, and daring to build together the nation we say we dream of. Or, as Pope Leo told the young people tonight: “May your lives become pages of the Gospel, written in the ink of mercy.” May Argentina write the next page well. (Photos from Reuters via @OSVNews)