In repose, Pope Francis can look somewhat forbidding, even bored. But to make him come alive you just have to hand him a microphone. Thursday evening at Błonia Park was no exception. Welcome dances and flag-waving seemed to move him little, but when he stood up to his white podium equipped with white microphone, he delivered an impassioned fervorino to the gathered masses of young people. He spoke of the danger of young people "taking early retirement": "I worry when I see young people who have ‘thrown in the towel’ before the game has even begun, who are defeated even before they begin to play, who walk around glumly as if life has no meaning. Deep down, young people like this are bored – and boring!" Those caught in this gloomy boredom, the Pope said, are at risk of seeking intense thrills from "peddlers of illusions, sellers of smoke". Young people have a choice, "empty thrills or the power of grace", and the Pope invited the young people to make that choice audibly there and then. It really was moving to hear the crowd roar back in unison: "La forza della grazia!"