As we continue our journey as "pilgrims of hope" in this jubilee year, I retrace some steps in the encounters lived in this time.
My visit to Zadar in Croatia after Easter represented a significant moment of this journey. The ancient Province of St. Jerome, now a dependent custody, is opening up with both trepidation and courage to a new future. I was able to feel how the brothers, even in the humility of numbers and resources, are experiencing this passage not as a defeat, but as an opportunity to rediscover the essentials of our charisma. Their testimony reminds us that being "minor" also means knowing how to welcome changes with confidence, recognizing in them not as an obstacle, but a possibility of renewal. I lived the same with the Friars Minor of Northern Italy on a day in Verona, where we asked ourselves what burdens to lay down for a more evangelical journey in this time.
Immediately after, the extraordinary meeting with almost a thousand young people in Taormina (Italy). I invited them to live in hope, to look to the future with their feet well planted in the reality of their land, with all its riches and challenges. I saw in their eyes the ability to dream without escaping from reality, to imagine a different tomorrow without forgetting the roots. In a territory like Sicily, marked by contradictions but also by enormous potential, these young people represent a concrete sign of that hope that does not disappoint.
During the international meeting of the lay brothers of the Order at the Porziuncola we all breathed together the beauty of the Franciscan vocation that goes beyond the simple distinction between lay friars and priests to embrace a model of differentiated unity. The lay friars and the ordained friars share the same mission, that of evangelizing with the word, with works, with actions and with the simple presence. At a time when differences often risk becoming divisions, we have rediscovered how it is possible to articulate unity and diversity between us.
In the May meetings with the General Definitorium and with the new ministers and custodians I tried to recognize the red thread of hope even in those difficult situations that I was able to listen to, both personal and fraternal. I have seen that even in contexts of crisis and abandonment, such as in transition and change, it is possible not to give up hope, but always on condition that we remain together, united.
The election of the "Lord Pope" Leo XIV made us breathe the faithful presence of the risen Lord in the midst of his people with the announcement of peace and hope, in the continuity of faith.
In these passages I once again perceived the wealth of our family in the greater path of the Church. A wealth that is not in works or structures, but in the ability to walk together as pilgrims, supporting each other in difficulties and sharing joys, looking deeply at our time, without fear and not forgetting the horizon of the Kingdom of God that opens us to the future.
