Pope Francis Homilies

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Matthew Mark Luke John The Acts Romans 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1 Thessalonians 2 Thessalonians 1 Timothy 2 Timothy Titus Philemon Hebrews James 1 Peter 2 Peter 1 John 2 John 3 John Jude Revelation Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua Judges Ruth 1 Samuel 2 Samuel 1 Kings 2 Kings 1 Chronicles 2 Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Tobit Judith Esther 1 Maccabees 2 Maccabees Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes The Song of Songs The Book of Wisdom Sirach Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Baruch Ezekiel Daniel Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi

Pope Leo Celebration of the Passion of the Lord 03.04.26

Good Friday

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Pope Leo Mass of the Lord’s Supper 02.04.26

Dear brothers and sisters,

This evening’s solemn liturgy marks our entry into the Holy Triduum of the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection. We cross this threshold not as mere spectators, nor out of habit, but as those personally invited by Jesus himself as guests at the Supper in which bread and wine become for us the sacrament of salvation. Indeed, we take part in a banquet at which Christ “having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1). His love becomes both gesture and nourishment for all, revealing the justice of God. In this world, and particularly in those places where evil abounds, Jesus loves definitively — forever, and with his whole being.

During this Last Supper, he washes the feet of his apostles, saying: “I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (Jn 13:15). The Lord’s gesture is inseparable from the table to which he has invited us. This gesture is a concrete example that flows from the sacrament: while revealing the meaning of the Eucharistic mystery, it also entrusts to us a task — a mission that we are called to take up as nourishment for our lives. John the Evangelist chooses the Greek word upódeigma to describe the event he witnessed: it means “that which is shown before your eyes.” What the Lords shows us — taking the water, the basin and the towel — is far more than a moral example. He entrusts to us his very way of life. The washing of the feet is a gesture that encapsulates the revelation of God: an exemplary sign of the Word made flesh, his unmistakable memorial. By taking on the condition of a servant, the Son reveals the Father’s glory, overturning the worldly standards that so often distort our conscience.

Along with the silent astonishment of his disciples, even human pride cannot remain blind to what is taking place. Like Peter, who at first resisted Jesus’ initiative, we too must “learn repeatedly that God’s greatness is different from our idea of greatness… because we systematically desire a God of success and not of the Passion” (Homily at Mass of the Lord’s Supper, 20 March 2008). These words of Pope Benedict XVI candidly acknowledge that we are always tempted to seek a God who “serves” us, who grants us victory, who proves useful like wealth or power. Yet we fail to perceive that God does indeed serve us through the gratuitous and humble gesture of washing feet. This is the true omnipotence of God. In this way, his desire to devote himself to those whose very existence depends upon his gift is fulfilled. Out of love, the Lord kneels to wash each one of us, and his divine gift transforms us.

Indeed, through this act, Jesus purifies not only our image of God — from the idolatry and blasphemy that have distorted it — but also our image of humanity. For we tend to consider ourselves powerful when we dominate, victorious when we destroy our equals, great when we are feared. In contrast, as true God and true man, Christ offers us the example of self-giving, service and love. We need his example to learn how to love, not because we are incapable of it, but precisely to teach ourselves and one another what true love is. Learning to act like Jesus — the living sign that God has placed within the history of the world — is the work of a lifetime.

He is the true measure, the “Teacher and Lord” (Jn 13:13) who removes every divine and human mask. He offers his example not when all are content and devoted to him, but on the night he was betrayed, in the darkness of incomprehension and violence. In this way, it becomes clear that the Lord’s love precedes our own goodness or purity; he loves us first, and in that love, he forgives and restores us. His love is not a reward for our acceptance of his mercy; instead, he loves us, and therefore cleanses us, thereby enabling us to respond to his love.

Let us, then, learn from Jesus this reciprocal service. He does not ask us to repay him, but to share his gift among ourselves: “You also ought to wash one another’s feet” (Jn 13:14). As Pope Francis once remarked: this “is a duty which comes from my heart: I love it. I love this and I love to do it because that is what the Lord has taught me to do” (Homily at Mass of the Lord’s Supper, 28 March 2013). He was not speaking of an abstract imperative, nor of a formal and empty command, but expressing his heartfelt obedience to the charity of Christ, which is both the source and the model of our own charity. Indeed, the example given by Jesus cannot be imitated out of convenience, reluctance or hypocrisy, but only out of love.

Allowing ourselves to be served by the Lord is therefore the necessary condition for serving as he did. “Unless I wash you”, Jesus said to Peter, “you have no share in me” (Jn 13:8): unless you accept me as your servant, you cannot truly believe in me or follow me as Lord. By washing our bodies, Jesus purifies our souls. In him, God has given us an example — not of how to dominate, but of how to liberate; not of how to destroy life, but of how to give it.

As humanity is brought to its knees by so many acts of brutality, let us too kneel down as brothers and sisters alongside the oppressed. In this way, we seek to follow the Lord’s example, fulfilling what we have heard from the book of Exodus: “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you” (12:14). Indeed, the whole of biblical history converges in Jesus, the true Passover lamb. In him, the ancient figures find their fulfilment, for Christ the Saviour accomplishes the Passover of humanity, opening for all the passage from sin to forgiveness, from death to eternal life: “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:24).

By renewing the Lord’s gestures and words this very evening, we commemorate the institution of the Eucharist and of Holy Orders. The intrinsic bond between these two sacraments reveals the perfect self-gift of Jesus, the High Priest and living, eternal Eucharist. For in the consecrated bread and wine lies “a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is received, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us” (Dogmatic Constitution Sacrosantum Concilium, 4 December 1963, 47). Through bishops and priests, constituted as “priests of the New Covenant” according to the Lord’s command (Council of Trent; De Missae Sacrificio, 1), there is made present the sign of his charity towards the whole People of God. Beloved brothers in the priesthood, we are called to serve the People of God with our whole lives.

Holy Thursday is therefore a day of fervent gratitude and authentic fraternity. May this evening’s Eucharistic adoration, in every parish and community, be a time to contemplate Jesus’ gesture, kneeling as he did, and to ask for the strength to imitate his service with the same love.

02.04.26 mls

Pope Leo Holy Mass 02.04.26

Holy Thursday - Mass of the Lord’s Supper

Pope Leo Holy Mass 02.04.26

Holy Thursday – Chrism Mass

Pope Leo General Audience 01.04.26

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

Brothers and sisters, good morning!

Let us continue on our path of reflection on the Church as she is presented to us in the Conciliar Constitution Lumen gentium (LG). Today we will look at the fourth chapter, which deals with the laity. Let us all remember what Pope Francis liked to repeat: “Lay people are, put simply, the vast majority of the people of God. The minority – ordained ministers – are at their service” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 102).

01.04.26

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 Holy Chrism Mass 02.04.26

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

Dear brothers and sisters,

We are now on the threshold of the Easter Triduum. Once again, the Lord will lead us to the culmination of his mission, so that his passion, death and resurrection may become the heart of our mission. What we are about to relive, in fact, possesses the power to transform what human pride generally tends to harden: our identity and our place in the world. Jesus’ freedom changes hearts, heals wounds, refreshes and brightens our faces, reconciles and gathers us together, and forgives and raises us up.

In this, my first year presiding over the Chrism Mass as Bishop of Rome, I would like to reflect with you on the mission to which God calls us as his people. It is the Christian mission, the very same as Jesus’, not another. Each of us takes part in it according to our own vocation in a deeply personal obedience to the voice of the Spirit, yet never without others, never neglecting or breaking communion! Bishops and priests, as we renew our promises, we are at the service of a missionary people. Together with all the baptized, we are the Body of Christ, anointed by his Spirit of freedom and consolation, the Spirit of prophecy and unity.

What Jesus experiences at the culminating moments of his mission is foreshadowed by the passage from Isaiah, which he quoted in the synagogue at Nazareth as the word that is fulfilled “today” (cf. Lk 4:21). Indeed, at the hour of Easter, it becomes definitively clear that God consecrates in order to send. “He has sent me” (Lk 4:18), says Jesus, describing that movement which binds his Body to the poor, to prisoners, to those groping in the dark and to those who are oppressed. We, as members of his Body, speak of a Church that is “apostolic,” sent out, driven beyond itself, and consecrated to God in the service of his creatures. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn 20:21).

We know that being sent entails, first and foremost, a detachment, that is, the risk of leaving behind what is familiar and certain, in order to venture into something new. It is interesting that “with the power of the Spirit” (Lk 4:14), who descended upon him after his baptism in the Jordan, Jesus returned to Galilee and came “to Nazareth, where he had been brought up” (Lk 4:16). It is the place he must now leave behind. He moves “as was his custom” (v. 16), but to usher in a new era. He must now leave that village for good, so that what has taken root there, Sabbath after Sabbath, through faithful listening to the word of God, may come to fruition. Likewise, he will call others to set out, to take risks, so that no place becomes a prison, no identity a hiding place.

Dear friends, we follow Jesus who “did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself” (Phil 2:6-7). Every mission begins with that kind of self-emptying in which everything is reborn. Our dignity as sons and daughters of God cannot be taken from us, nor can it be lost, but neither can the affections, places, and experiences at the start of our lives be erased. We are heirs to so much good and, at the same time, to the limitations of a history into which the Gospel must bring light and salvation, forgiveness and healing. Thus, there is no mission without reconciliation with our past, with the gifts and limitations of the upbringing we have received; but, at the same time, there is no peace without setting out, no awareness without detachment, no joy without risk. We are the Body of Christ if we move forward, coming to terms with the past without being imprisoned by it: everything is restored and multiplied if it is first let go, without fear. This is a fundamental secret of mission. It is not something that is experienced just once, but in every new beginning, in every new sending forth.

Jesus’ journey reveals to us that the willingness to lose oneself, to empty oneself, is not an end in itself, but a condition for encounter and intimacy. Love is true only when it is unguarded; it requires little fuss, no ostentation, and gently cherishes weakness and vulnerability. We struggle to commit ourselves to a mission that exposes us in this way, and yet there is no “good news to the poor” (cf. Lk 4:18) if we go to them bearing the signs of power, nor is there authentic liberation unless we free ourselves from attachment. Here we touch upon a second secret of the Christian mission. After detachment comes the law of encounter. We know that throughout history, mission has not infrequently been distorted by a desire for domination, entirely foreign to the way of Jesus Christ. Saint John Paul II had the clarity and courage to recognise that “because of the bond which unites us to one another in the Mystical Body, all of us, though not personally responsible and without encroaching on the judgment of God who alone knows every heart, bear the burden of the errors and faults of those who have gone before us.”

Consequently, it is now a priority to remember that neither in the pastoral sphere nor in the social and political spheres can good come from abuse of power. The great missionaries bear witnesses to quiet, unobtrusive approaches, whose method is the sharing of life, selfless service, the renunciation of any calculated strategy, dialogue and respect. It is the way of the Incarnation, which always takes the form of inculturation. Salvation, in fact, can only be received by each person through his or her native language. “How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?” ( Acts 2:8). The surprise of Pentecost is repeated when we do not presume to control God’s timing, but place our trust in the Holy Spirit, who “is present, even today, as in the time of Jesus and the Apostles: is present and at work, arriving before us, working harder than us and better than us; it is not for us to sow or awaken him, but first and foremost to recognise him, welcome him, go along with him, make way for him, and follow him. He is present and has never lost heart regarding our times; on the contrary, he smiles, dances, penetrates, engulfs, envelops, and reaches even where we would never have imagined.”

To establish this harmony with the transcendent, we must go where we are sent with simplicity, respecting the mystery that every person and every community carries within them. As Christians, we are guests. This is also true if we are bishops, priests, or men and women religious. To be hosts, in fact, we must learn to be guests ourselves. Even the places where secularisation seems most advanced are not lands to be conquered or reconquered: “New cultures are constantly being born in these vast new expanses where Christians are no longer the customary interpreters or generators of meaning. Instead, they themselves take from these cultures new languages, symbols, messages and paradigms which propose new approaches to life, approaches often in contrast with the Gospel of Jesus… It must reach the places where new narratives and paradigms are being formed, bringing the word of Jesus to the inmost soul of our cities.” This happens only if we walk together as the Church, if mission is not a heroic adventure reserved for a few, but the living witness of a Body with many members.

There is also a third dimension, perhaps the most radical, of the Christian mission. The dramatic possibility of misunderstanding and rejection, which is already seen in the violent reaction of the people of Nazareth to Jesus’ words. “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff” (Lk 4:28-29). Although the liturgical reading has omitted this part, what we are about to celebrate this evening calls on us not to flee, but to “pass through” the trial, just as Jesus did. Jesus “passed through the midst of them and went on his way” (Lk 4:30). The cross is part of the mission: the sending becomes more bitter and frightening, but also more freeing and transformative. The imperialist occupation of the world is thus disrupted from within; the violence that until now has been the law is unmasked. The poor, imprisoned, rejected Messiah descends into the darkness of death, yet in so doing he brings a new creation to light.

02.04.26 cm

The Gospel in your pocket

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)

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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