Pray to Jesus and invite others to the parish, Pope tells groups at Roman parish

March 09, 2026

During a visit to the Church of Saint Maria della Presentazione in Rome, Pope Leo spoke with youth, with the sick and elderly, and with parish council members.

The visit, which took place on the afternoon of March 8, was the fourth in a series of five Sunday pastoral visitations to parishes in the Diocese of Rome.

Pope Leo told the youth:

How important it is that we all learn to pray. To listen to God, but also to speak with God, with the prayers that we have memorized and that we always say, but also with our words: to speak with Jesus, to bring to Jesus our worries, the difficulties, the pains that we experience every day.

Jesus is close to us. Let’s open our eyes. We recognize that even in the person next to us, or in the person who suffers, the person who has nowhere to live, nowhere to sleep, who is on the street, the sick person. Jesus is also in those circumstances, and he asks us who bring what we have received to these people who are in need.

To the sick and elderly, he emphasized:

Each one of you, even the oldest, the sickest, the weakest person, each one of you has so much value, because we are all created in the image of God, we all share this dignity of being sons and daughters of God.

And many times today’s world would like us to forget this fact, but it is not so. And so your presence here this afternoon speaks for a great deal: it is a beautiful testimony of the fact that all of us, united as in a family, have a great value, because we are children of God, created in his image, loved by God, and therefore called, too, to share this love with others. And therefore your voice, your presence, your prayers, even your suffering: all this has a great value in today’s world.

The Pontiff told the members of the parish council that “everything is grace” before encouraging them to invite others to the parish:

Many times we find families who, not because they are bad, because they have done something wrong, but simply because life has gone on—they have no longer taken the time to know Jesus, to know the word of God, to know the beauty of what it means to live in fraternity, in community, but also to live united to Jesus Christ.

And so there is a very great work there for our parishes, for you as a parish council that represents the different realities of the parish. To say: how can we do our work in such a way that it is truly an invitation, that does not wait for them to come to us, but that finds the way to go out, to go a little further, to call, to accompany those who perhaps have never known the gift of faith, the gift of the Christian community.

 

---

For all current news, visit our News home page.

---

 
Further information:

• Pastoral visit to the Parish of "Saint Maria della Presentazione" (Dicastery for Communication - Vatican Media, 3/8/26)