During this morning's Audience, Pope Leo XIV invited us to ask the Lord “to give us a supernatural view of reality, so that, rooted in faith and with firm hope, we may know how to live oriented towards the Kingdom of God, without allowing ourselves to be absorbed by the passing and the difficulties of the journey”.
May the Holy Spirit grant us to recognize his presence in history, to serve others with love and to be living signs of his salvation in the midst of the world, he concluded before giving the Blessing.
The Church, oriented toward the heavenly homeland
Within the framework of catechesis On the documents of the Second Vatican Council, specifically on the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium on the Church, the Holy Father meditated on the eschatological dimension of the Church.
“She walks in history oriented towards the heavenly homeland, an essential aspect that is often omitted,” he pointed out. It is the People of God on the way, whose goal is the Kingdom of God announced by Christ, and lives at the service of its coming “through the Word, the sacraments-especially the Eucharist-and relationships of love and service.”.
Communion of Saints: a single Church uniting the living and the deceased
In the same vein, he referred to the Church as the “universal sacrament of salvation”, sign and instrument of the promised fullness, although it is not totally identified with the Kingdom, whose fulfillment will take place at the end.
Believers thus live between the “already” and the “not yet,” sustained by hope and called to reject what destroys life and to support those who suffer, he said. “Sign of the Kingdom, the Church does not proclaim herself, but Christ. Moreover, she lives the communion of saints: a single Church that unites the living and the deceased, especially in the liturgy, praising God and journeying towards the final fullness.” “Our definitive homeland is heaven,” he told the pilgrims in Portuguese.
Messages to German-speakers, Poles, Arabs ....
In his addresses to pilgrims of other languages, the Successor of Peter invited them to entrust all their intentions to the Virgin Mary (German) and to pray the Holy Rosary, “meditating with Mary on the life of Christ” (Arabic).
His encouragement to German-speakers was as follows: “Dear German-speaking brothers and sisters, in this month dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, ‘sign of sure hope and consolation’ (LG 68), let us entrust to her all our personal intentions and the great challenges of our time”.
Unity and respect for Christian values
He reminded the Poles of “the special protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Poland, and of St. Stanislaus, Bishop and martyr, considered the patron of the moral order of your country. Through their intercession, ask for the gift of unity and respect for Christian values among your people”.
He also greeted, among other groups, the newly ordained priests of the Legionaries of Christ, their families and accompanying communities (Spanish language).
San Domingo Savio, school of Don Bosco
Before giving the Blessing, he recalled that the Church commemorates today the memory of St. Dominic Savio, one of the first fruits of holiness forged by divine grace in the school of Don Bosco. May his example of fidelity to the Lord in every circumstance help each of you to respond generously to the desires for good that the Holy Spirit inspires in you“.
