2023-08-04 21:15:00
August 4, 2023 / 2:15 pm
Francisco Velarde, a 21-year-old Spaniard, has been one of the 3 privileged ones who have been able to confess with Pope Francis this morning in the “City of Joy” of WYD.
A few hours later, and still “in a cloud”, tells ACI Prensa the details of what he considers “the Confession of his life”.
“I still don’t believe it a bit, I’m in a cloud trying to assimilate everything, getting some peace of mind, because it really has been… Imagine, I still can’t believe it and it’s been 5 hours,” Francisco told ACI Prensa. Although he assures: “I still don’t want to finish believing it.”
The young man from Córdoba, a city in southern Spain, received the news of this unforgettable event a month ago. “I’ve been thinking about what was going to happen today for 30 nights.”
In order to prepare himself correctly, he began to write down in a notebook what he wanted to tell the Successor of Peter. “We don’t have much time, about 10 or 15 minutes, and I really wanted to summarize how important I wanted to talk to the Holy Father, question my life and let him advise me.”
“Until this last night, it has been difficult to sleep, but it has helped me a lot to simplify everything I wanted to say and to have that mind to open up with the Holy Father, which in the end, whether you want it or not, gives you a bit of shame” .
“I have told him the sins that cause me the most pain”, says Francisco, who assures that it is the Confession of his life, “because I do not think there is much probability that something like this will happen again”.
“It has been the Confession of my life,” he reiterates, “and I have also confessed things that, although they were already confessed, today, having the opportunity to be with the Holy Father, I wanted him to advise me and show them as a representative of God who is in the earth, I wanted to show it to him and also receive his forgiveness for all these things.”
During the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Pope Francis “stopped me, commented on something, gave me some notion of giving my life.”
“It has invited me to be brave, to love even when it is difficult. and when we have less reasons to love, to continue loving”. The Holy Father also invited him to maintain “the joy of being brave, the courage to follow Christ”.
The young Spaniard, with the permission of the Pope, claimed to be his “messenger” and encouraged all young people “to be brave and have courage.”
Almudena Martínez-Bordiú is a Spanish journalist, correspondent for ACI Prensa in Rome and the Vatican, with four years of experience in religious information.
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