St. Clare of Assisi’s choice to follow the Gospel inspires hope, Pope tells jubilee audience
October 06, 2025
In the sixth Saturday jubilee audience of 2025, Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to St. Clare of Assisi.
The theme of the series of jubilee audiences is hope. In “Sperare è scegliere. Chiara di Assisi“ [To hope is to choose: Clare of Assisi, video], Pope Leo told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square on October 4 that the phrase “to hope is to choose” “means at least two things.”
“The most obvious one is that the world changes if we change,” the Pope said. “The pilgrimage is made for this, it is a choice. The Holy Door is crossed to enter a new time. The second meaning is deeper and more subtle: to hope is to choose because those who do not choose despair. One of the most common consequences of spiritual sadness, that is, sloth, is not choosing anything. So those who experience it are seized by an inner laziness that is worse than death.”
St. Clare, he continued, “understood what the Gospel asks. But even in a city that believes itself to be Christian, the Gospel taken seriously can appear to be a revolution. Then, as now, you have to choose! Clare has chosen, and this gives us great hope.”
The Pope added:
In fact, we see two consequences of her courage in following that desire: the first is that many other girls in that territory found the same courage and chose the poverty of Jesus, the life of the Beatitudes; the second consequence is that that choice was not like a flash in the pan, but lasts over time, up to us. Clare’s choice inspired vocational choices all over the world and continues to do so to this day.
“Let us therefore pray for young people; and let us pray to be a Church that does not serve money or herself, but the Kingdom of God and his justice,” Pope Leo concluded. “A Church that, like St. Clare of Assisi, has the courage to inhabit the city differently. This gives hope!”
Previous audiences in series:
- Pope Francis, To hope is to begin again—John the Baptist (11 January 2025)
- Pope Francis, To hope is to turn around. Mary Magdalene (1 February 2025)
- Pope Leo XIV, To hope is to connect. Irenaeus of Lyon (14 June 2025)
- Pope Leo XIV, To hope is to dig. Empress Helena (6 September 2025) The Vatican has not published an English translation of this audience, though it has published an English summary.
- Pope Leo XIV, To hope is to intuit. Ambrose of Milan (27 September 2025) The Vatican has not published an English translation of this audience, though it has published an English summary.
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