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June 26, 2025
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With his newest pastoral letter, That Blessed Upper Room, Toronto's Cardinal Francis Leo takes the archdiocese's Catholic back to the place where the "building blocks" of the faith originated.
That Blessed Upper Room is the second pastoral letter the Cardinal has written as Archbishop of Toronto, the first since both his elevation to the College of Cardinals and under Pope Leo XIV’s new pontificate. Leo revealed that the content of the letter that invites the faithful to reflect together came to him precisely in the context of the election of the faith’s new spiritual father.
“ During the general congregations in Rome the week before the election, all the cardinals heard a wonderful talk by a Benedictine Abbot who spoke about the upper room. As I thought more about it and prayed more about it, these aspects of fundamental Christian Catholic life came to me. It became very evident that that historical place, but much more, was where, when and how the building blocks of the Christian life were first experienced,” Leo said.
The pastoral letter refers to, by name, the Cenacle — a room on Mount Zion in Jerusalem that was the site of Jesus' Last Supper with His apostles. Wanting to reflect on the significance of this room in our lives, Leo’s vision was solidified by his own reflection during his time in Rome helping choose Pope Leo XIV as successor to the late Pope Francis.
“ Because of that snippet that the monk gave us, I pictured us cardinals as being in a new Pentecost where I understood that the same Holy Spirit that came upon Our Lady at the Annunciation is the same Holy Spirit we were invoking in the Sistine Chapel to ask God to indicate and help us choose the person who will be pleasing to Him in filling the seat of Peter.”
The pastoral letter is divided into nine different dimensions of Catholic life across just under 30 pages of guidance and meditations. The chapters cover key areas of the faith from the Eucharist to the Resurrection and are aimed at spurring Catholics to embrace Christ’s call to communal holiness while uniting parishes and homes in reflection.
In Leo’s own words, the nine events and examples are the foundation of what it means to be a follower of Christ. He spent a month writing the letter using the free time he had in the evenings and at night while still in Rome following the conclave, using sacred Scripture, sacred tradition, the magisterium texts and his own personal experience of faith and ministry as inspiration.
He also credited his desire as Archbishop in being a teacher of the faith and the responsibility to use those means to teach the Catholic faith and provide spiritual nourishment to the people of God, especially in Toronto, as a driving force behind the letter.
At the heart of That Blessed Upper Room in chapter four lies the Resurrection, the foundation of Christian hope, linked to the Last Supper’s Eucharistic gift. While all nine dimensions are divinely revealed, he notes that the most fundamental of all would perhaps be the truth revealed through the Resurrection, especially during this special Jubilee Year of Hope.
“ Our hope as Pilgrims of Hope is that Jesus is risen and because He has risen, we encounter Him in the Eucharist, in the priesthood and in our daily lives. In the liturgy and our daily living as Christians, we are called to die to ourselves, to our selfishness and our greed, in order to resurrect daily. We are dying and resurrecting daily, and that, I explain, is a continual walk with the Lord,” he said.
Another key line from the letter’s introduction was the Cardinal's promise to offer “tasty and nourishing manna for our common journey to the Kingdom.” He clarifies the line as it relates to his hopes of sustaining Toronto’s faithful against “spiritual fast food.”
“ Life and our life of faith is a one-way journey back home to the house of the Father. Similar to that of the Hebrews, we don't walk alone — we walk with others and the Lord provides nourishment for the journey lest we be tempted, weakened or fall,” he said.
“Hopefully, good nourishment can come in these reflections because our minds and our hearts are made for truth, goodness and beauty. My hope is that this letter can be food like the manna that God provided. In our Heavenly Father, as a spiritual father, I would like to provide some similar spiritual manna and nourishment for the journey of the people to whom I have been called to serve and to accompany.”
Leo spoke about his hopes for the use of the letter in various settings, whether in parishes, within families, schools or personal retreats. His desire is for readers to ruminate on each of the dimensions and then apply it to their lives, seeing their walk with the Lord and the Church in a clearer, focused and refreshed manner.
“My true dream is that this can be the start of a renewed contribution to deepen the Christian spirit, deepen the Christian walk to live and the reason to think and to love with a Christian soul, that of Christ Himself,” Leo said.
That Blessed Upper Room can be read in full on the Archdiocese of Toronto’s website.
A version of this story appeared in the June 29, 2025, issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "Cardinal takes us back to faith's roots".
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Photo courtesy Caio Resende
