Excitement surged among the hundreds of thousands of young people as the Popemobile arrived.
Pope Leo XIV broke from the scheduled program to greet personally many of those who had spent hours waiting for him. This spontaneous gesture transformed the energetic welcome into one of the more touching moments of the pope's first day in Spain.
Once Pope Leo was seated on stage, a group of young people posed questions they had gathered from their parishes.
One of them asked about the mission of young people within the Church. This question was posed by Fernando, a newly married young man, to which the pope responded:
POPE LEO XIV
Congratulations on your marriage, Fernando! I have also seen other couples here who are preparing to get married. Congratulations and blessings to you all! Because if I said earlier, “Do not be afraid to consider a vocation,” marriage is also a vocation. Do not be afraid of marriage or of forming families.
After this spontaneous exchange, he went on to answer Fernando’s question about the mission entrusted to young people:
POPE LEO XIV
I want to entrust all of you with a mission: a mission to be human. Yes, be human: men and women of flesh and blood. Not appearances, but trustworthy faces. People who seek justice because they hunger for it as they do for their daily bread. People who desire an honest and upright life because they willingly do for others what they would want others to do for them.
The young people also presented Pope Leo with the Youth Cross, inviting him to sign it so they might have a memento of this historic gathering in Madrid.
Then the most anticipated moment of the evening: half a million faithful adoring the Blessed Sacrament. A profound silence descending upon one of the busiest areas of Madrid.
During the time of adoration, the Catholic music group Hakuna accompanied the prayer with their well-known song “You, the Only King” (Tú el único Rey), and all those present joined in the singing:
The Eucharistic Benediction provided the perfect conclusion to an evening filled with joy in Madrid, bringing to a close the first day of this historic apostolic journey.
