PARIS (OSV News) — Close to 800,000 people lined Paris’ Champs Elysees from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde for Mass Sept. 26 with Pope Leo XIV, who urged the people of France to follow Jesus to the source of true happiness and peace.

“Seeing you gathered here, my brothers and sisters, heirs to France’s long and beautiful history of faith, I say to you: drink from the source that is the pierced heart of Jesus. Yes, you thirst for God, for life, for truth, for unity, for peace, for communion and for happiness,” the pope said in his homily.

People waved flags and joyfully sang hymns as Pope Leo arrived in the popemobile in the Place de la Concorde, the largest public square in the city of Paris.

‘Once in a lifetime chance’ for papal Mass

Parisians told OSV News that they waited hours, at times under drizzling rain, for their chance to attend Mass with the pope.

Sixteen-year-old Lea Mortier from Lille, France, traveled to Paris with her mother and some friends and waited more than five hours in the Place de la Concorde for what she described as a once in a lifetime chance to attend Mass with the pope.

“It’s so wonderful. It just can happen only once in your life — so it’s amazing for us,” she said, adding that since she was a little girl, she “grew up with Christ.”

Six of the altar servers with Down syndrome assisted at the papal Mass, a poignant witness to life in the capital of a country where 68% of prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome end in abortion, according to a 2020 study published in the European Journal of Human Genetics.

Liliane, a mother of three girls — Ella, 8, Brielle, 5, and 13-year-old Francesca, a child with multiple disabilities.

“We came to pray, especially for my daughter, who is ill,” she said, grateful the hospital provided invitations for the papal Mass. “We’re happy to be here, there’s quite a crowd. It’s my first time attending Mass with the Pope alongside my daughters,” she told OSV News.

Pope Leo: seek Christ to find true fulfillment

From the square, Pope Leo urged the people gathered to look within their hearts and ask, “What is my deepest thirst? What am I really seeking in life?” adding, “we all long for happiness, love and fulfillment, but from what source do we seek to quench our thirst?”

“It is Jesus Christ, through his Incarnation, who comes to meet every person in the midst of his or her own story, and reveals himself as the true source of living water capable of quenching our thirst,” Pope Leo said.

“This thirst that dwells in every human heart is not so much a thirst for material things, but a thirst for meaning, for truth and fulfillment.”

The Place de la Concorde is steeped in history from the 3,300-year-old pink granite Egyptian obelisk at its center to two splendid palaces commissioned by King Louis XV. In one of them, Benjamin Franklin signed the treaty by which France ratified the independence of the new United States of America with King Louis XVI in 1778.

The square was also the site of much bloodshed during the French Revolution with more than 1,000 people beheaded by guillotine, including Queen Marie Antoinette, King Louis XVI, and later Maximilien Robespierre.

Christ ‘knows each one of us by name’

In this place of past suffering, Pope Leo said, “Brothers and sisters, we must acknowledge that nothing in this world can ever fully satisfy us.”

“When we think that our work is finished at last and our efforts have been rewarded, that inner emptiness often returns, deeper than before. And so, in an attempt to fill it, we may seek new pleasures, want to possess more and more things, or do everything we can to distract ourselves in order to numb that inner restlessness.”

Pope Leo underlined that it is Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, who “leads us, as a shepherd leads his sheep, to the source of happiness and peace.”

“He knows each one of us by name. Nothing about us is hidden from him — neither our secrets, nor our intentions nor our weaknesses. He searches the depths of our hearts.”

The Mass in Paris was the culminating event of Pope Leo’s two-day visit to the French capital.

Among those in the crowd was French artist Nicolas de Palmaert who was sketching the scene in the square live.

“There is a lot of energy, and that’s why it’s really important for me to describe this energy with my drawings. It’s not realistic. It’s a sensation, a personal sensation” that he wanted to share with others, he told OSV News.

Packed schedule of French trip

Earlier in the day, the pope visited a Catholic charitable center dedicated to the assistance of refugees in the city’s Montmartre neighborhood and met with some of France’s newly baptized adult converts and catechumens.

“I think also of you, dear catechumens and newly baptized, who have begun the journey of faith, conversion and Christian initiation,” Pope Leo said, recalling the visit in his homily. “May you bear witness to those around you to the journey you are making, and inspire them to ask themselves questions as well.”

The theme of Pope Leo’s Sept. 25 to 28 apostolic journey to France is “That the world may have life” (John 6:51).

“From this beautiful city of Paris, I pray fervently that the living water of the Holy Spirit may flow throughout France,” Pope Leo said.

“Do not keep this faith in Jesus Christ to yourselves. Let it overflow, so that those you meet may be refreshed and their thirst satisfied,” he urged Parisians.

Following the Mass, the pope was taken directly to Paris’ Orly Airport to board a flight to Lourdes, the beloved Marian pilgrimage site in the southwest of France, where he will spend Sunday praying with the sick, celebrating Mass, meeting clerical abuse survivors, speaking to French bishops, and leading a candlelight rosary procession.

Pope Leo’s visit to France will conclude on Sept. 28 in the northeastern city of Metz with a meeting with European leaders in the birthplace of Robert Schuman, a statesman declared venerable by Pope Francis and known for his Franco-German reconciliation efforts after World War II, who is considered one of the founding fathers of European integration.

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Courtney Mares is Vatican editor for OSV News. Follow her on X @catholicourtney.