Save the date-National CW Farm Gathering, February 13-15
Catholic Worker
Catholic Worker
Catechesis of Pope Leo XIV
November 22, 2025
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Jesus came to bring fire: the fire of God's love upon the earth and the fire of desire within our hearts. In a certain sense, Jesus takes away our peace, if we think of peace as inert calm. But this is not true peace. At times we would like to be "left in peace": that no one bother us, that others no longer exist for us. This is not God’s peace. The peace Jesus brings is like a fire and asks much of us. It asks us, above all, to take a stand. In the face of injustices, inequalities, where human dignity is trampled upon, where the voices of the vulnerable are silenced. To take a stand. To hope is to take a stand. To hope is to understand in the heart and to show through actions that things must not continue as before. This too is the good fire of the Gospel.
I would like to recall a small yet great American woman, Dorothy Day, who lived in the last century. She kept fire within her. Dorothy Day took a stand. She saw that the development model of her country did not create the same opportunities for everyone. She realized that for too many people the dream was a nightmare and that as a Christian she had to become involved with workers, with migrants, with those cast aside by an economy that kills. She wrote and she served: it is important to unite mind, heart and hands. This is taking a stand. She wrote as a journalist. That is, she thought and helped others to think. Writing is important. And also reading. Today more than ever. And then Dorothy served meals, gave clothing, dressed, and ate like those she served: she united mind, heart, and hands. In this way to hope is to take a stand.
Dorothy Day involved thousands of people. They opened houses in many cities, in many neighborhoods: not large service centers, but places of charity and justice where people could call each other by name, know one another one by one, and transform indignation into communion and action. This is what peacemakers are like: they take a stand and bear the consequences, but they move forward. To hope is to take a stand, like Jesus, with Jesus. His fire is our fire. May the Jubilee rekindle it in us and in the whole Church.
[Transcribed from the Vatican’s English translation for the video because a full official English translation was not available.]
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/audiences/2025/documents/20251122-udienza-giubilare.html