Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!

We have started the cycle of catechesis on Vatican Council II. Today we will begin to look more closely at the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, on the divine Revelation. It is one of the most beautiful and important of the Council and, to introduce it, it may be helpful to recall the words of Jesus: “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn 15:15). This is a fundamental point of Christian faith, which Dei Verbum reminds us of: Jesus Christ radically transforms man’s relationship with God, which is henceforth a relationship of friendship. Therefore, the only condition of the new covenant is love.

Saint Augustine, commenting on this passage of the Fourth Gospel, insists on the perspective of grace, which alone can make us friends of God in his Son (Commentary on the Gospel of John, Homily 86). Indeed, an ancient motto stated: “Amicitia aut pares invenit, aut facit”, “friendship is born between equals, or makes them so”. We are not equal to God, but God himself makes us similar to Him in his Son.

For this reason, as we can see in all the Scripture, in the Covenant there is a first moment of distance, in which the pact between God and mankind always remains asymmetrical: God is God and we are creatures. However, with the coming of the Son in human flesh, the Covenant opens up to its final purpose: in Jesus, God makes us sons and daughters, and calls us to become like Him, albeit in our fragile humanity. Our resemblance to God, then, is not reached through transgression and sin, as the serpent suggests to Eve (cf. Gen 3:5), but in our relationship with the Son made man.

The words of the Lord Jesus that we have recalled – “I have called you friends” – are reprised in the Constitution Dei Verbum, which affirms: “Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (see Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (see Ex 33:11; Jn 15:14-15) and lives among them (see Bar 3:38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself” (no. 2). The God of Genesis already conversed with our first parents, engaging in dialogue with them (cf. Dei Verbum, 3); and when this dialogue was interrupted by sin, the Creator did not cease to seek an encounter with his creatures and to establish a covenant with them. In the Christian Revelation, that is, when God became man in his Son in order to seek us out, the dialogue that had been interrupted is restored in a definitive manner: the Covenant is new and eternal, nothing can separate us from his love. The Revelation of God, then, has the dialogical nature of friendship and, as in the experience of human friendship, it does not tolerate silence, but is nurtured by the exchange of true words.

The Constitution Dei Verbum also reminds us of this: God speaks to us. It is important to recognize the difference between words and chatter: this latter stops at the surface and does not achieve communion between people, whereas in authentic relationships, the word serves not only to exchange information and news, but to reveal who we are. The word possesses a revelatory dimension that creates a relationship with the other. In this way, by speaking to us, God reveals himself to us as an Ally who invites us into friendship with Him.

From this perspective, the first attitude to cultivate is listening, so that the divine Word may penetrate our minds and our hearts; at the same time, we are required to speak with God, not to communicate to him what He already knows, but to reveal ourselves to ourselves.

Hence the need for prayer, in which we are called to live and to cultivate friendship with the Lord. This is achieved first of all in liturgical and community prayer, in which we do not decide what to hear from the Word of God, but it is He Himself who speaks to us through the Church; it is then achieved in personal prayer, which takes place in the interiority of the heart and mind. Time dedicated to prayer, meditation and reflection cannot be lacking in the Christian’s day and week. Only when we speak with God can we also speak about Him.

Our experience tells us that friendships can come to an end through a dramatic gesture of rupture, or because of a series of daily acts of neglect that erode the relationship until it is lost. If Jesus calls us to be friends, let us not leave this call unheeded. Let us welcome it, let us take care of this relationship, and we will discover that friendship with God is our salvation.

I extend a warm welcome this morning to all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, especially those coming from Ireland, Australia, Korea and the United States of America. Upon all of you and your families, I invoke the joy and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. God bless you all!

My greeting then extends to the young people, the sick, and the newlyweds. May the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which we celebrated last Sunday , reawaken in all the memory of our Baptism. May it be for each of us an incentive to always witness to the joy of belonging to Christ, the Father's beloved Son and our Brother who illuminates the path of life.

My blessing to everyone!

14.01.26

Pope Leo General Audience 14.01.26  

Pope Leo Angelus 11.01.26 

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

FAMINE

Pope Francis

Hunger

Hunger is an injustice that destroys men and women because they have nothing to eat, even if there is a lot food available in the world. Human exploitation; different forms of slavery; recently I saw a film shot inside a prison where migrants are locked up and tortured to turn them into slaves. This is still happening 70 years after the Declaration of Human Rights. Cultural colonization. This is exactly what the Devil wants, to destroy human dignity – and that is why the Devil is behind all forms of persecution.

01.06.18

Pope Leo Angelus 11.01.26 Feast of the Baptism of the Lord 

Pope Leo Holy Mass 11.01.26 

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord  

Pope Leo Holy Mass 08.01.26 

Extraordinary Consistory

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God” (1 Jn 4:7). The liturgy sets this exhortation before us as we celebrate the Extraordinary Consistory, a moment of grace wherein our unity in the service of the Church finds its expression.

As we know, the word Consistory (Consistorium, or “assembly”) can be understood through the root of the verb consistere, meaning “to stand still.” Indeed, all of us have “paused” in order to be here. We have set aside our activities for a time, and even cancelled important commitments, so as to discern together what the Lord is asking of us for the good of his people. This itself is already a highly significant and prophetic gesture, particularly in the context of the frenetic society in which we live. It reminds us of the importance, in every aspect of life, of stopping to pray, listen and reflect. In doing so, we refocus our attention ever more clearly on our goal, directing every effort and resource towards it, lest we risk running blindly or “beating the air” in vain, as the Apostle Paul warns (cf. 1 Cor 9:26). We gather not to promote personal or group “agendas,” but to entrust our plans and inspirations to a discernment that transcends us – “as the heavens are higher than the earth” (Is 55:9) – and which comes only from the Lord.

For this reason, it is important that during this Eucharist, we place each of our hopes and ideas upon the altar. Together with the gift of our lives, we offer them to the Father in union with the Sacrifice of Christ, so that we may receive them back purified, enlightened, united and transformed by grace into one Bread. Indeed, only in this way will we truly know how to listen to his voice, and to welcome it through the gift that we are to one another – which is the very reason we have gathered.

Our College, while rich in many skills and remarkable gifts, is not called primarily to be a mere group of experts, but a community of faith. Only when the gifts that each person brings are offered to the Lord and returned by him, will they bear the greatest fruit according to his providence.

Moreover, God’s love, of which we are disciples and apostles, is a “Trinitarian” and “relational” love. It is the very source of that spirituality of communion, by which the Bride of Christ lives and desires to be a home and a school (cf. Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, 6 January 2001, 43). Expressing the hope that this spirituality would flourish at the dawn of the third millennium, Saint John Paul II described it as “the heart’s contemplation of the mystery of the Trinity dwelling in us, and whose light we must also be able to see shining on the face of the brothers and sisters around us” (ibid.).

Our “pausing,” then, is first and foremost a profound act of love for God, for the Church and for the men and women of the whole world. Through this, we allow ourselves to be formed by the Spirit: primarily in prayer and silence, but also by facing one another and listening to one another. In our sharing, we become a voice for all those whom the Lord has entrusted to our pastoral care in many different parts of the world. We must live this act with humble and generous hearts, aware that it is by grace that we are here. Moreover, we bring nothing that we have not first received as a gift or talent, which are not to be squandered, but invested with prudence and courage (cf. Mt 25:14–30).

Saint Leo the Great taught that “it is a great and very precious thing in the sight of the Lord when the whole people of Christ apply themselves together to the same duties, and all ranks and orders… cooperate with one and the same Spirit.” In this way, “the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, the sick visited, and no one seeks his or her own interests, but those of others” (Sermon 88, 4). This is the spirit in which we wish to work together: the spirit of those who desire that every member of the Mystical Body of Christ will cooperate in an orderly way for the good of all (cf. Eph 4:11–13). May we fully carry out our ministry with dignity under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, happy to offer our own labor and to see it its fruits mature. May we likewise welcome the labors of others and rejoice in seeing them flourish (cf. Saint Leo the Great, Sermon 88, 5).

For two millennia, the Church has embodied this mystery in its multifaceted beauty (cf. Francis, Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti, 280). This very assembly bears witness to it through the variety of our origins and ages, and in the unity of grace and faith that gathers us together and makes us brothers.

Certainly, we stand before a “great crowd” of humanity hungry for goodness and peace. In a world where satisfaction and hunger, abundance and suffering, and the struggle for survival together with a desperate existential emptiness continue to divide and wound individuals, communities and nations, we may feel inadequate. Faced with the words of the Master, “You give them something to eat” (Mk 6:37), we too might feel, like the disciples, that we lack the necessary means. Yet Jesus repeats to us once more, “How many loaves have you? Go and see” (Mk 6:38). This is something we can do together. We may not always find immediate solutions to the problems we face, yet in every place and circumstance, we will be able to help one another – and in particular, to help the Pope – to find the “five loaves and two fish” that providence never fails to provide wherever his children ask for help. When we welcome these gifts, hand them over, receive and distribute them, they are enriched by God’s blessing and by the faith and love of all, ensuring that no one lacks what is necessary (cf. Mk 6:42).

08.01.26  m

Pope Leo

Message for World Day of Peace  01.01.26

How do we receive the Word of God? The response is clear: As one receives Jesus Christ. The Church tells us that Jesus is present in the Scripture, in His Word.

Always carry a small Gospel with you in your purse, in your pocket, and read a passage from the Gospel during the day. Not so much to learn something, but mostly to find Jesus, because Jesus actually is in His Word, in His Gospel.  Every time I read the Gospel, I find Jesus.  - Pope Francis 01.09.14

Daily Readings - read the entire New Testament over a 2 year period (reading plan courtesy of Gideon International)

The Bible Online

Thank you, Francis

Every month, you have invited us to pray with you for the challenges of humanity and the mission of the Church, teaching us to learn compassion for others from the heart of Christ. Thank you, Francis, for your life and your witness.

Your Worldwide Prayer Network.

Pope Francis Easter Message and Urbi et Orbi Blessing   20.04.25

Easter Sunday

for the full transcript click on the picture link above

Pope Francis

Care for Our Common Home - Laudato Si'

Pope Francis 

Refugees and Migrants

Pope Francis

 Marriage

Pope Francis - The ‘foreverness’ and beauty of Love 

Pope Francis - The Family in the Light of the Word of God

Pope Francis 

Fraternity

Pope Francis

Compassion

Pope Francis

Happiness

Pope Leo Holy Mass 06.01.26  

Pope Francis Message for the 58th World Day of Peace 01.01.25