Pope exhorts Spanish seminarians to practice the presence of God
March 02, 2026
Pope Leo XIV received seminarians from four Spanish dioceses on February 28 and advised them to practice the presence of God, lest they become like the barren fig tree mentioned by Christ (Luke 13:6-9).
Commenting on a quotation from G. K. Chesterton’s 1905 work Heretics —“Take away the supernatural, and what remains is the unnatural”—Pope Leo said that “man is not made to live closed in on himself, but in a living relationship with God.”
“When that relationship is obscured or weakened, life begins to fall into disorder from within,” the Pope continued. “The unnatural is not only the scandalous; it is enough to live without God in daily life.”
A “believing outlook on reality needs to be translated every day into concrete choices in life; otherwise, even intrinsically good practices—such as study, prayer, community life—can become empty and distorted, becoming mere fulfilment,” Pope Leo said. “A simple and proven way to safeguard this view is to practice the presence of God, which keeps the heart awake and life constantly focused on Him.”
The Pope warned:
It is said that trees “die standing”: they remain upright, they retain their appearance, but inside they are already dry. Something similar can happen in the life of a seminary or of a seminarian—and later in the life of a priest—when fruitfulness is mistaken for the intensity of activities or with merely external care for appearances.
Spiritual life does not bear fruit because of what is visible, but because of what is deeply rooted in God. When that root is neglected, everything ends up drying up inside, until, silently, it ends up “dying standing upright.”
The audience with seminarians from Alcalá de Henares, Toledo, Cataluña, and Cartagena took place in Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace. The Pontiff has previously praised The Practice of the Presence of God, a a spiritual classic written by the Carmelite friar Brother Lawrence (c. 1614-1691).
For all current news, visit our News home page.
Further information:
All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a current donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!
