Nuns at the Stade de France with Leo XIV

Friday, September 25, on the occasion of his apostolic trip to France, Pope Leo XIV met 80,000 young people aged 17 to 35 during the Youth Vigil at the Stade de France.

Testimonies, music, exchange with the Holy Father and time for prayer: an exceptional evening, in which a delegation of nine nuns, from several monasteries and different orders, had the joy of participating.
They tell us.

On the morning of Friday, September 25, nine nuns met at the Visitation of Paris, to go to the youth vigil with the Pope at the Stade de France. It all started in early July, when Sr. Maggy was contacted by Bishop Emmanuel Tois, accompanying bishop of religious life at the CEF, who then relayed an invitation from the organizing team, who wanted to highlight the young vocations during the vigil. Our group formed fairly quickly. The idea was that there would be one or two sisters of each order in our delegation.
We were to join the "vocations" delegation with a hundred other religious, seminarians and young priests for an entrance in the form of a processional parade at the beginning of the vigil, before the arrival of the Pope.

During the waiting time at the stadium, we were able, with the whole group, to pray Vespers that would be celebrated at Notre-Dame de Paris a little later, thanks to booklets that had been distributed to us.
Two of us, Sr. Camilla de Jésus and Sr. Marie-Bakhita, were taken to the right place at the last minute: they were part of the small group that was very close to the Pope, on the podium, and they had to enter the stadium before us, with another group!

At 8 pm, a "runner" came to pick us up to take us to our meeting point where we waited for the start signal for our walk around the stadium.

For the rest, the vigil itself, we decided to give you a glimpse of what we have experienced from the eyes of some of us.

“For us, living is Christ! This is what we proclaimed with the Holy Father and the 80,000 young people present at the Stade de France. What joy, what faith. In the current context, how good it is to meet other young Catholics, joyful and courageous, and other consecrated young people, happy in their vocation. Thank you Lord for all your blessings!”

“I will never forget the thanks of the young people when our 'vocations' delegation came to the stadium! On a daily basis we do not see them but we know that each of our small gestures resonates somewhere in the world and it happens every day, and we were lucky to see it with our own eyes!! » Through the sharing of their daily lives (time of prayer, work, exchanges with younger or older sisters, teachings, song rehearsals, meals...), I was able to gently refine certain aspects of my vocational discernment, perceiving more concretely what could fill me or miss me in such a life. I also felt free and respected in this desire for discovery, welcomed in all simplicity, where I was...

"The meeting of these 80,000 young people who filled the largest stadium in France was an immense testimony of shared joy under the gaze of God. The joy of meeting people known to one another and whom we did not think we would meet at this precise moment… The joy of showing the Pope the youth of France gathered to welcome him and pray with him. The joy of receiving his message that has strengthened us in our respective life paths. ”