Dig for the Cross as St. Helena did, Pope Leo tells pilgrims at jubilee audience

September 08, 2025

Commencing a new series of monthly Saturday jubilee audiences. Pope Leo XIV spoke on September 6 on the theme of “to hope is to dig: Empress Helena.”

“I would like to start with a memory: as children, putting our hands in the earth had a special charm ... digging into the earth, breaking the hard crust of the world and seeing what lies underneath, “ Pope Leo said to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “As soon as they had the freedom to live as Christians publicly, Jesus’ disciples began to dig, especially in the places of his passion, death and resurrection.”

“The Tradition of East and West remembers Flavia Julia Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, as the soul of those searches,” the Pope continued. “How many other things an empress could have done! What noble places could she have preferred to the peripheral Jerusalem? How many pleasures and honors of the court.”

Her greatest find “was the discovery of the Holy Cross,” the Pope said. “Here is the hidden treasure to sell everything for! The Cross of Jesus is the greatest discovery of life.”

Reflecting on St. Helena’s life, he added:

Helena could understand this, perhaps, because she had carried her cross for a long time. She was not born at court: it is said that she was an innkeeper of humble origins, with whom the future emperor Constantius fell in love. He married her, but for reasons of power he did not hesitate to repudiate her, distancing her for years from her son Constantine.

When he became emperor, Constantine himself caused her many pains and disappointments, but Helena was always herself: a woman in search. She had decided to become a Christian and always practiced charity, never forgetting the humble from whom she herself came.

Such dignity and fidelity to conscience, dear brothers and sisters, change the world even today: they bring us closer to treasure, like the work of the farmer. Cultivating one’s heart takes effort. It’s the biggest job. But by digging we find, by lowering ourselves we get closer and closer to that Lord who emptied himself to become like us. His Cross is under the crust of our earth.

 

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Further information:

• Udienza Giubilare (9/6/25, Dicastery for Communication - Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
• Jubilee Audience (9/6/25, Dicastery for Communication - Libreria Editrice Vaticana)