At his General Audience, Pope Leo XIV links modern “fatigue of living” with Gospel healings, urging faith-filled contact with Jesus for true hope.
Vatican City, June 25, 2025, Gaudium Press – During today’s General Audience, Pope Leo XIV continued the Jubilee catechesis series titled “Jesus Christ, Our Hope”, focusing on the Gospel accounts of the bleeding woman and Jairus’ daughter, as examples of Jesus’ healing ministry—“signs of hope” and reminders that the Lord can heal any illness.
The Pope introduced his reflection with these words: “A very widespread ailment of our time is the fatigue of living: reality seems to us to be too complex, burdensome, difficult to face. And so we switch off, we fall asleep, in the delusion that, upon waking, things will be different”
He then tied this spiritual fatigue to the intertwined healing narratives in Mark 5:21–43, involving Jairus’ death‑bed daughter and the woman crippled by hemorrhage for twelve years. Highlighting Jairus’ example, he said: Jesus “when they come to tell him that his daughter is dead … he continues to have faith and to hope”
Regarding the bleeding woman, the Pope quoted Augustine: “’The crowd jostles, faith touches.’ It is thus: every time we perform an act of faith addressed to Jesus, contact is established with Him, and immediately his grace comes out from Him.”
Pointing to Jesus’ words to the healed woman, he added:“Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
Reflecting on the healing of Jairus’ daughter, he emphasized Jesus’ command: “Little girl, I say to you, get up” (Talitha koum), adding: “That gesture of Jesus shows us that he not only heals every disease, but also awakens from death. For God, who is Eternal Life, death of the body is like sleep. True death is that of the soul: of this we must be afraid!”
The Pope concluded with a pastoral note on nourishment: “Jesus, after reviving the child, tells the parents to give her something to eat … we ask ourselves: do we know how to give spiritual nourishment? And how can we, if we ourselves are not nourished by the Gospel?”
Compiled by Gustavo Kralj
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