INDIANAPOLIS (OSV News) - Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez looked out from a sanctuary built on the floor of Lucas Oil Stadium on the 16,000 youths from across the country who came to Indianapolis for the National Catholic Youth Conference.
He shared with them a message of hope he wanted them to nurture in their hearts as they returned to their homes.
"When you feel lost, Jesus is your shepherd," Archbishop Pérez said in his homily during the conference's closing Mass on Nov. 22. "Remember that. When you feel you're in darkness, Jesus is your light. When you feel you're absolutely hungry and your soul is weighed down, Jesus is your bread."
Jesus, he returned to again and again in his homily on the feast of Christ the King, is the "king of our hearts."
In reflecting on Christ the King, Archbishop Pérez said that he is not a king in the way that the world views such rulers.
"His throne is a cross," he said. "His crown is not made of gold and gems. It's made of thorns. He doesn't wear fancy, beautiful, priceless rings on his hands. He has nails."
According to the world, Christ's death on the cross was "the worst of all ways to execute a criminal."
But, because of Christ's resurrection, the church in faith proclaims that his crucifixion was actually a great victory for him and all who believe in him.
"Goodness has won," Archbishop Pérez said. "Christ the King has already given us victory. We have to embrace that, internalize that and make a part of who we are. And that's the journey of our Christian life."
Three times in his homily, Archbishop Pérez cried out in a popular and historic phrase in Spanish, "Viva Cristo Rey!" ("Long live Christ the King!"). And each time, the congregation cried out the common reply, "Que viva!" ("He lives!").
Because the centerpiece of this year's NCYC was a nearly hourlong video interaction of the participants with Pope Leo XIV, Archbishop Pérez reflected in his homily on parts of the pontiff's message.
He reminded them in the pope's words that Jesus "'knows when life feels heavy. Even you do not feel his presence, our faith tells us he is there.'"
Archbishop Pérez encouraged them in the pope's words to take " 'daily moments of silence … whether through adoration, or reading Scripture, or simply talking to' " Jesus in order to build up a relationship with him and to " 'entrust their struggles' " to him.
"'Little by little, we learn to hear his voice both from within and through the people he sends us. As you grow closer to Jesus, do not fear what he may ask you for. If he challenges you to make changes in your life, it's always because he wants to give you a greater joy and freedom. God is never outdone in generosity.'"
Archbishop Pérez offered a heartfelt prayer at the end of his homily after quoting Pope Leo's words.
"Thank you, Lord, for the visit of your vicar," he said. "We are blessed and honored to have had him with us. And thank you, Lord, for being our king, for being the king of our hearts."
He and the 16,000 youths in the stadium then ended the homily as they had begun it.
"Viva Cristo Rey!" "Que viva!" "Viva Cristo Rey!" "Que viva!" "Viva Cristo Rey!" "Que viva!"
The love for Christ that the youths and their chaperones showed during the homily poured forth during Communion when many knelt and raised their hands in prayer, entering into the popular praise and worship music that the conference's house band played.
As Archbishop Pérez, more than 20 concelebrating bishops and nearly 250 concelebrating priests processed off the stadium's floor at the end of the closing Mass, the house band struck up again the praise and worship music that filled the hearts of the 16,000 youths who joyfully celebrated their faith.
With the music continuing to play and youths still overflowing with joy in the stadium, Karyna Lopez spoke in a concourse of the stadium about her experience of her second NCYC.
"It was so good that I had to come again," Karyna, a teenager from the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, told The Criterion, Indianapolis' archdiocesan news outlet. "The Holy Spirit is very strong here. Everyone is just so inspired for the Lord."
Like many of the other 16,000 teens who attended NCYC, Karyna took memories of her encounter with Pope Leo as she left Lucas Oil Stadium and prepared to return home.
"We got to see the pope," she said with joy. "It was amazing. He had so much wisdom to share. I'm just glad that I got to experience that."
One of the most impactful experiences of the National Catholic Youth Conference held every other year in Indianapolis is the gathering of all participants in Lucas Oil Stadium for Eucharistic adoration, which took place this year on Nov. 21.
"This evening is about healing," said Gian Gamboa, one of this year's NCYC emcees. "You can't give until you are healed from within."
Sister Miriam James Heidland, of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, spoke about healing before the Blessed Sacrament was reverently processed into the stadium in a monstrance.
She defined healing as "an ongoing encounter with God's love and truth that brings us into wholeness and communion."
"We have lots of secrets, don't we?" Sister Miriam James asked. "And secrets just make us very ill. And so, what Jesus does is he comes into your life in an encounter with love and truth -- the love heals the wounds, the truth heals the lies."
This encounter occurs in "a place where God dwells within you," she continued. "It's a place where your dignity cannot be destroyed, and the gift of who you are cannot be hidden.
"And it's from this place, my dear friends, that the Lord speaks to us."
During adoration, as Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services knelt before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament in the center of the stadium, he read the Bread of Life Discourse from John 6:35-58.
"We must partake of the bread of eternal life if we hope to achieve our goal -- eternal happiness in union with Almighty God," he said. "Jesus insists twice on this necessity, even in the faith of the disbelief of his audience. He will not compromise to please the crowd. ... Unlike many who will only tell us what they think we want to hear, Christ's words are spirit and life. They challenge us to grow. They invite us into communion with him and with each other."
Among the many speakers who addressed the NCYC crowd of 16,000 was Nolan McCracken, a senior at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis. He shared what was essentially a soulful, vulnerable and unusual thank-you Nov. 20.
He tied thanking God, his mother, his sister, his grandmother and his friends to the three laws of motion of Sir Isaac Newton, a 17th-century mathematician and physicist.
"My journey with God so far can be understood by using Newton's three laws of motion," Nolan told the audience: "an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an external force"; "force equals mass times acceleration"; and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
In middle school and his freshman year of high school, he was "an object at rest -- not physically or mentally, but spiritually," because he was focused on grades.
He switched to Cathedral High School for his sophomore year, where his "acceleration" was to increase his success, he said, letting go of " friends, family and a relationship with a God whose face I no longer recognized."
But then he began to attend church with his mom and sister and also found that at every all-school Mass he "could be a part of a community, a part of a collective witness to love."
During a junior retreat that Cathedral held at the University of Notre Dame in northern Indiana, "I became open to hearing about the external force God had in their lives, I began to see that I could rely on God." In accepting, "God's loving and powerful external force," Nolan saw Newton's third law of motion come into play in his life.
"If you feel you are an object at rest or even moving in the wrong direction, Jesus is there for you," he told his peers. "I invite you to accept him, to close your eyes and know that you are held."
Caption: Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez of Philadelphia preaches a homily during the Nov. 22, 2025, closing Mass of the National Catholic Youth Conference celebrated in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. (OSV News photo/Sean Gallagher, The Criterion)
