Pope Leo XIV celebrated this Monday, October 27, 2025, in St. Peter’s Basilica, the Holy Mass with the students of the pontifical universities of Rome, within the framework of the Jubilee Year. In his homily, the Holy Father exhorted young people to live faith and study as an interior pilgrimage, reminding them that “life is only life if it is on the way, if it is capable of living the Easter mystery”.
The Pontiff centered his message on the invitation to recover “the grace of an overall gaze”, a broad vision that encompasses the totality of reality, overcomes individualism, and seeks truth with hope. “The one who studies rises —he said—, broadens his horizons, and learns to look not only at what is in front of him, but toward God, toward others, and toward the mystery of life”.
The gaze that liberates
Commenting on the Gospel passage of the bent-over woman (Lk 13:10-17), Leo XIV explained that this figure represents the human being closed in on himself, unable to look beyond his own experience.
“When the human being fails to see beyond himself —he warned—, he remains a slave to his own schemes, a prisoner of his selfishness and fear.”
The Pope proposed the image of the gaze healed by Christ as a symbol of interior conversion and spiritual openness: “The healed woman obtains hope because she can finally raise her gaze and see something different. This is what happens when we encounter Christ: he takes us out of our enclosure and opens us to a truth capable of changing life”.
Faith, reason, and the search for truth
Addressing the young people and university professors directly, Pope Leo XIV exhorted them not to separate intellectual work from spiritual life: “The Church of today and tomorrow needs this integrative gaze”.
He evoked the example of great saints who united reason and faith —such as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Ávila, and Edith Stein—, inviting academics to make research and teaching “a reality capable of transforming life and making us witnesses of the Gospel in society”.
The Pope emphasized that studying is also an act of love, because it involves the search for what is true and what gives meaning to existence. “Without truth —he said— one can fall into emptiness and even die”.
A call to hope and Christian joy
In the final part of his homily, Leo XIV encouraged young people to live study as an experience of hope, knowing that they are not alone. He quoted the words of St. Paul:
“All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God… they have not received a spirit of slavery, but the Spirit of adopted sons and daughters that makes us call God ‘Father’” (Rom 8:14-15).
The Pope concluded by asking that university students be men and women who “never bend over themselves, but remain upright, capable of living the joy and consolation of the Gospel and bringing them wherever they go”.
We leave the complete message from Leo XIV to the university students:
Dear brothers and sisters:
Meeting in this place during the Jubilee Year is a gift that we cannot take for granted. It is especially so because the pilgrimage to pass through the Holy Door reminds us that life is only life if it is on the way, only if it knows how to take “steps”, that is, if it is capable of living the Easter mystery.
It is beautiful to think then of the Church which, in these months, celebrating the Jubilee, experiences this setting out on the way, reminding itself that it needs to convert constantly, that it must always follow Jesus without hesitation and without the temptation to overtake him, that it is always in need of Easter, that is, of “passing” from slavery to freedom, from death to life. I hope that each one of you experiences in himself the gift of this hope and that the Jubilee may be an occasion for your life to start anew.
Today I would like to address you, who are part of university institutions, and those who, in various fields, dedicate themselves to study, teaching, and research. What is the grace that can touch the life of a student, a researcher, a scholar? I would like to answer this question like this: the grace of an overall gaze, a gaze capable of encompassing the horizon, of going beyond.
We can grasp this idea precisely in the Gospel page that we have just proclaimed (Lk 13:10-11), which offers us the image of a bent-over woman who, healed by Jesus, can finally receive the grace of a new gaze, a broader gaze. The condition of ignorance, which is often linked to closedness and a lack of spiritual and intellectual interest, resembles the condition of this woman: she is completely bent over, folded in on herself, so that it is impossible for her to look beyond herself. When the human being is unable to see beyond himself, beyond his own experience, his own ideas and convictions, his own schemes, then he remains a prisoner, he remains a slave, unable to mature his own judgment.
Like the bent-over woman in the Gospel, the risk is always that of remaining prisoners of a gaze centered on ourselves. But in reality, many things that matter in life —we could say the fundamental things— we do not give ourselves, but they come from others; they reach us and we receive them from teachers, from encounters, from life experiences. And this is an experience of grace, because it heals our bendings. It is a true healing that, just as happens to the woman in the Gospel, allows us to regain an upright posture before things and before life, and to look at them in a broader horizon. This healed woman obtains hope, because she can finally raise her gaze and see something different, see in a new way. This happens especially when we encounter Christ in our life: we open ourselves to a truth capable of changing life, of distracting us from ourselves, of taking us out of our enclosure.
The one who studies rises, broadens his horizons and perspectives, to recover a gaze that does not fix only on the low, but is capable of looking upward: toward God, toward others, toward the mystery of life. This is the grace of the student, the researcher, the scholar: to receive a broad gaze, one that knows how to go far, that does not simplify issues, that does not fear questions, that overcomes intellectual laziness and thus also defeats spiritual atrophy.
Let us always remember: spirituality needs this gaze to which the study of theology, philosophy, and other disciplines contributes in a special way. Today we have become experts in infinitesimal details of reality, but we are unable to achieve an overall vision, a vision that gives unity to things through a greater and deeper meaning; the Christian experience, on the other hand, wants to teach us to look at life and reality with an integrative gaze, capable of encompassing everything by rejecting any partial logic.
I exhort you, then —I address you, students, and all those dedicated to research and teaching— not to forget that the Church of today and tomorrow needs this integrative gaze. And looking at the example of men and women like Augustine, Thomas, Teresa of Ávila, Edith Stein, and many others, who knew how to integrate research into their life and spiritual journey, we too are called to carry forward intellectual work and the search for truth without separating them from life. It is important to cultivate this unity, so that what happens in university classrooms and in all kinds of educational settings and levels does not remain an abstract intellectual exercise, but becomes a reality capable of transforming life, of making us deepen our relationship with Christ, of making us better understand the mystery of the Church, of making us bold witnesses of the Gospel in society.
Dear brothers, study, research, and teaching are related to an important educational task, and I would like to exhort universities to embrace this call with passion and commitment. Educating resembles the miracle narrated in this Gospel, because the gesture of the one who educates is to lift the other, to set him on his feet as Jesus did with that bent-over woman, to help him be himself and to mature an autonomous conscience and critical thinking. The pontifical universities must be enabled to continue this gesture of Jesus. It is an authentic act of love, because there is a charity that passes precisely through the alphabet of study, of knowledge, of the sincere search for what is true and for what is worth living for. Satisfying the hunger for truth and meaning is a necessary task, because without truth or authentic meanings one can fall into emptiness and even die.
On this path, each one can also find the greatest gift of all: knowing that he is not alone and that he belongs to someone, as the apostle Paul affirms: “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. And you have not received a spirit of slaves to fall back into fear, but the spirit of adopted sons and daughters, which makes us call God Abba! That is, Father” (Rom 8:14-15). What we receive while seeking truth and committing ourselves to study helps us discover that we are not creatures thrown into the world by chance, but that we belong to someone who loves us and has a plan of love for our life.
Dear brothers and sisters, I join you in asking the Lord that the experience of study and research in the university adventure you are living make you capable of this new gaze; that the academic journey help you to know how to say, tell, deepen, and proclaim the reasons for the hope that we have (cf. 1 Pet 3:15); that the university form you to be women and men who never bend over themselves, but who are always upright, capable of living the joy and consolation of the Gospel and bringing them wherever they go.
May the Virgin Mary, Throne of Wisdom, accompany you and intercede for you.