Lisbon, 06 August, 2023 / 8:48 pm (ACI Africa).
“Be not afraid,” Pope Francis told young Catholics Sunday at the closing Mass of World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal, echoing the well-known call of his predecessor and the founder of the international youth gathering, St. Pope John Paul II.
“Dear young people, I would like to look into the eyes of each one of you and tell you: be not afraid, be not afraid,” he said Aug. 6 on a sunny morning in what organizers dubbed the “Field of Grace.”
“I tell you something very beautiful: it is no longer me, it is Jesus himself who is looking at you in this moment, he is looking at you,” the pope continued. “He knows you, he knows the heart of each one of you, he knows the life of each one of you, he knows the joys, he knows the sadness, the successes and the failures.”
Jesus, Pope Francis told young people, “knows your hearts. He sees our hearts. And he tells you today here in Lisbon, on this World Youth Day: ‘Be not afraid, be not afraid, take heart, be not afraid.’”
Francis celebrated Mass on the Feast of the Transfiguration for an estimated 1.5 million people in Parque Tejo, where young people and their leaders had camped out overnight following a prayer vigil. Around 10,000 priests and 700 bishops concelebrated.