Vatican City: A profound call to unity and spiritual renewal echoed through St. Peter’s Square as Pope Leo XIV led tens of thousands of pilgrims in a moving Pentecost Vigil on Saturday evening. The event marked a highlight in the Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations, and New Communities, drawing more than 70,000 faithful from over 100 nations.
Before the Pope's arrival, the square was alive with a “pre-Vigil” celebration—an outpouring of joy, music, testimonies, and communal prayer that gave voice to the diversity and vitality of ecclesial groups across the globe. The arrival of Pope Leo ushered in a transition to deep liturgical reflection, centered on the gift of unity through the Holy Spirit.
In his homily, the Pope looked out at the massive crowd gathered in the iconic square and noted how Bernini’s colonnades—with their open arms—symbolize the Church’s embrace of all. “Here, the communion of the Church becomes visible,” he said, “manifested in the variety of movements and communities gathered in a single Spirit.”
Pope Leo went on to explore the theme of synodality, describing it as a sacred expression of walking together in communion, rooted in the very life of the Trinity. “Where the Spirit dwells, there is always movement,” the Pope declared. “It is not a motion of chaos, but a pilgrimage that binds us to the whole human family.”
This divine movement, he said, calls us away from the fragmentation and hostility that scar our world and invites us into shared life. “When we cease to behave like predators and begin to walk as pilgrims—no longer alone, but together—then the earth will breathe again, justice will blossom, the poor will be lifted, and peace will be restored.”
“God fashioned the world so that all may live as one,” Pope Leo said, framing synodality not as an internal Church mechanism, but as a holy expression of God's original intention for creation—a humanity bound in love and harmony.
Touching on the mission of evangelization, the Pope warned against turning it into a campaign of conquest. “Evangelization,” he insisted, “is not about expansion through influence or tactics. It is the radiant witness of lives touched and transformed by the Kingdom.” True evangelization, he explained, flows from the Beatitudes and walks in the footsteps of Christ—quiet, faithful, and rooted in grace.
The Holy Father encouraged the movements to remain deeply anchored in their local churches and parishes. “In communion with bishops and the wider Church, we journey forward not in isolation but as one Body,” he urged. “Then the storms of our times will lose their terror, and our path through uncertainty will be clearer.”
As the Pentecost Vigil drew to a close, Pope Leo’s message remained ringing in hearts: Unity is not an ideal—it is a divine calling. The Spirit beckons us forward, not as solitary travelers, but as a people bound together in love, listening, and shared mission. In a world breaking apart, the Church is summoned anew to be a sign of God's dream—that all may live as one.