In the General Audience of December 17, held within the framework of the Jubilee 2025, Pope Leo XIV continued the cycle of catecheses «Jesus Christ, our hope», centering his reflection on the Resurrection of Christ and the challenges of the current world. On this occasion, the Pontiff presented Easter as the destiny of the restless heart, emphasizing that the Christian faith does not annul daily effort or responsibility, but does offer a horizon of meaning that frees man from dispersion, empty activism, and hopelessness. In the light of the Risen Christ, he affirmed, the human heart finds its true rest and its ultimate fullness in God, the firm foundation of Christian hope.
We leave below the complete catechesis of Leo XIV:
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
Human life is characterized by a constant movement that impels us to do, to act. Nowadays, speed is demanded everywhere to obtain optimal results in the most diverse areas. In what way does the resurrection of Jesus illuminate this aspect of our experience? When we participate in his victory over death, will we rest? Faith tells us: yes, we will rest. We will not be inactive, but we will enter into God’s rest, which is peace and joy. Well then, do we only have to wait, or can this change us from now on?
We are absorbed in many activities that do not always satisfy us. Many of our actions have to do with practical, concrete things. We must assume responsibility for numerous commitments, solve problems, face fatigues. Jesus too got involved with people and with life, without sparing efforts, but giving himself to the end. However, we often perceive that doing too much, instead of giving us fullness, becomes a vortex that stuns us, takes away our serenity, prevents us from living better what is really important for our life. Then we feel tired, unsatisfied: time seems to scatter in a thousand practical things that, however, do not resolve the ultimate meaning of our existence. Sometimes, at the end of days full of activities, we feel empty. Why? Because we are not machines, we have a «heart», what’s more, we can say that we are a heart.
The heart is the symbol of our entire humanity, the synthesis of thoughts, feelings, and desires, the invisible center of our persons. The evangelist Matthew invites us to reflect on the importance of the heart, by quoting this beautiful phrase from Jesus: «For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also» (Mt 6,21).
It is, then, in the heart where the true treasure is kept, not in the safes of the earth, not in large financial investments, today more than ever mad and unjustly concentrated, idolized at the bloody price of millions of human lives and the devastation of God’s creation.
It is important to reflect on these aspects, because in the numerous commitments we face continually, the risk of dispersion emerges more and more, sometimes of despair, of lack of meaning, even in apparently successful people. On the other hand, reading life under the sign of Easter, looking at it with the Risen Jesus, means finding access to the essence of the human person, to our heart: cor inquietum. With this adjective «restless», Saint Augustine makes us understand the impulse of the human being that tends toward its full realization. The complete phrase refers to the beginning of the Confessions, where Augustine writes: «You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you» (I, 1,1).
Restlessness is the sign that our heart does not move at random, in a disordered way, without an end or a goal, but is oriented toward its ultimate destiny, that of «returning home». And the authentic destiny of the heart does not consist in the possession of the goods of this world, but in reaching what can fill it fully, that is, the love of God, or better said, God Love. However, this treasure is only found by loving the neighbor we encounter on the way: brothers and sisters of flesh and blood, whose presence challenges and questions our heart, calling it to open up and give itself. The neighbor asks you to slow down, look them in the eyes, sometimes change plans, perhaps even change direction.
Dearest ones, here is the secret of the movement of the human heart: to return to the source of its being, to enjoy the joy that does not end, that does not disappoint. No one can live without a meaning that goes beyond the contingent, beyond what passes. The human heart cannot live without hoping, without knowing that it is made for fullness, not for emptiness.
Jesus Christ, with his Incarnation, Passion, Death, and Resurrection, has given a solid foundation to this hope. The restless heart will not feel defrauded if it enters into the dynamism of the love for which it was created. The destiny is sure, life has conquered and in Christ it will continue to conquer in every death of the everyday. This is the Christian hope: let us bless and give thanks always to the Lord who has given it to us!