“Following these past few hours of great tension in the Middle East and throughout the world, I welcome with satisfaction, and as a sign of deep hope, the announcement of an immediate two-week ceasefire”. Pope Leo XIV said this at the end of today’s audience, during his greetings to the Italian-speaking faithful. “Only by returning to the negotiating table can we bring the war to an end”, the Pope continued. “I urge you to accompany this time of delicate diplomatic work with prayer, in the hope that a willingness to engage in dialogue may become the means to resolve other situations of conflict in the world”. “I reiterate my invitation to everyone to join me in the Prayer Vigil for Peace, which we will celebrate here in Saint Peter’s Basilica on Saturday 11 April”, he said in his appeal at the end of his catechesis, devoted to the fifth chapter of Lumen Gentium, which addresses the universal call to holiness of all the faithful.
“Holiness is not a privilege for the few”,
the Pontiff stressed, “but a gift that requires every baptized person to strive for the perfection of charity, that is, the fullness of love towards God and towards one’s neighbour”. Charity is “the heart of the holiness to which all believers are called”, Pope Leo recalled, drawing on the Conciliar Constitution. “The highest level of holiness, as in the early days of the Church, is martyrdom”. For this reason, “every believer must be ready to confess Christ even unto blood, as has always been the case and continues to be so today”. According to the Pontiff, this readiness to bear witness “is realized every time Christians leave signs of faith and love in society, committing themselves to justice”.
“All the baptized must be holy,
that is, truly worthy, strong and faithful children” of the Church, the Pope exhorted. “This is realized as an inner transformation, whereby the life of every person is conformed to Christ by virtue of the Holy Spirit”, the Pope explained. “All the Sacraments, and in a pre-eminent way the Eucharist, are nourishment that fosters a holy life, assimilating every person to Christ, the model and measure of holiness. He sanctifies the Church, of which He is the Head and Shepherd: holiness is, from this point of view, His gift, which is manifested in our daily life every time we receive it with joy and respond to it with commitment”.
Holiness is “a constitutive characteristic” of the Catholic Church, “to receive in faith, inasmuch as she is believed to be indefectibly holy”, Pope Leo summarised. “This does not mean that she is so in a full and perfect sense,
but that she is called to confirm this divine gift during her pilgrimage towards the eternal destination, walking amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God”, he explained, quoting Saint Augustine. “The sad reality of sin in the Church, that is, in all of us, invites each person to carry out a serious change of life, entrusting ourselves to the Lord, who renews us in charity”, the Pontiff remarked. “It is precisely this infinite grace, which sanctifies the Church, that entrusts us with a mission to fulfil day after day: that of our conversion”.
Holiness “does not only have a practical nature, as if it were reducible to an ethical commitment, however great, but concerns the very essence of Christian life, both personal and communal”.
From this perspective, “a decisive role” is played by consecrated life, which the Conciliar Constitution considers in the sixth chapter. “In the holy People of God, it constitutes a prophetic sign of the new world, experienced here and now in history”, Leo XIV said, recalling the three evangelical counsels that shape every experience of consecrated life: poverty, chastity and obedience. “These three virtues are not rules that shackle freedom, but liberating gifts of the Holy Spirit, through which some of the faithful are wholly consecrated to God”, he pointed out:
“Poverty expresses complete trust in Providence, freeing one from calculation and self-interest; obedience takes as its model the self-giving that Christ offered to the Father, freeing one from suspicion and domination; chastity is the gift of a heart that is whole and pure in love, at the service of God and the Church”.
“By conforming to this style of life, consecrated persons bear witness to the universal vocation of holiness of the entire Church, in the form of radical discipleship”, the Pope concluded. According to him, “the evangelical counsels manifest full participation in the life of Christ, unto the Cross: it is precisely by the sacrifice of the Crucified One that we are all redeemed and sanctified! By contemplating this event, we know that there is no human experience that God does not redeem: even suffering, lived in union with the passion of the Lord, becomes a path of holiness”.
The post Leo XIV: “only by returning to the negotiating table can we bring the war to an end” first appeared on AgenSIR.