1688 words, 9 minute read.
This morning I listened with anticipation to Pope Leo XIV’s first homily since his election, in which he addressed the college of cardinals. I remember vividly listening to Popes Benedict XVI and Francis do likewise, and in all these cases, this morning’s one included, the first papal sermons set out visions of who we are as Church, what the world needs and how the freshly installed pontiff sees the road ahead.
Even before he spoke, I was pleased to see that both readings were proclaimed by women. The first clearly a nun and the second perhaps not. A key element of the mass – the proclamation of the Word of God – was shared between the pope and two women.
The homily then started with a brief foreword in English, delivered by Pope Leo – referred to by his friends as Bob – in an appropriately unmistakeable US accent. It might sound like an exaggeration, but that brief prelude alone already spoke volumes to me.
It starts with thanksgiving for God’s generosity:
I want to repeat the words from the Responsorial Psalm: “I will sing a new song to the Lord, because he has done marvels.”
And indeed, not just with me but with all of us. My brother Cardinals, as we celebrate this morning, I invite you to recognize the marvels that the Lord has done, the blessings that the Lord continues to pour out on all of us through the Ministry of Peter.
And then spells out who we are (Jesus’ friends) and what we are supposed to do (announce the Good News):
You have called me to carry that cross, and to be blessed with that mission, and I know I can rely on each and every one of you to walk with me, as we continue as a Church, as a community of friends of Jesus, as believers to announce the Good News, to announce the Gospel.
Pope Leo then switches to Italian and proceeds to unfold the homily proper. Here too we start with a beautiful, simple and kerygmatically succinct proclamation:
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God: the one Saviour, who alone reveals the face of the Father.
In him, God, in order to make himself close and accessible to men and women, revealed himself to us in the trusting eyes of a child, in the lively mind of a young person and in the mature features of a man (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22), finally appearing to his disciples after the resurrection with his glorious body. He thus showed us a model of human holiness that we can all imitate, together with the promise of an eternal destiny that transcends all our limits and abilities.
Jesus is the Father’s closeness, a human, divinizing example to follow. “Peter, in his response, understands both of these things: the gift of God and the path to follow in order to allow himself to be changed by that gift.”
What role does the Church, administered by Pope Leo, play here?
In a particular way, God has called me by your election to succeed the Prince of the Apostles, and has entrusted this treasure to me so that, with his help, I may be its faithful administrator (cf. 1 Cor 4:2) for the sake of the entire mystical Body of the Church. He has done so in order that she may be ever more fully a city set on a hill (cf. Rev 21:10), an ark of salvation sailing through the waters of history and a beacon that illumines the dark nights of this world.
City on a hill. Ark. Beacon. But how?
And this, not so much through the magnificence of her structures or the grandeur of her buildings – like the monuments among which we find ourselves – but rather through the holiness of her members. For we are the people whom God has chosen as his own, so that we may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light (cf. 1 Pet 2:9).
What is to shine is God’s light, through our individual and joint holiness, not structures or pomp.
Pope Leo then circles back to the question of who Jesus is, which Jesus himself addressed to Peter: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Mt 16:13) He then offers two alternative answers – that of “the world” and that of “ordinary people”.
First, there is the world’s response. Matthew tells us that this conversation between Jesus and his disciples takes place in the beautiful town of Caesarea Philippi, filled with luxurious palaces, set in a magnificent natural landscape at the foot of Mount Hermon, but also a place of cruel power plays and the scene of betrayals and infidelity. This setting speaks to us of a world that considers Jesus a completely insignificant person, at best someone with an unusual and striking way of speaking and acting. And so, once his presence becomes irksome because of his demands for honesty and his stern moral requirements, this “world” will not hesitate to reject and eliminate him.
The Jesus of “the world” is a character, a celebrity perhaps, but insignificant. Here I was struck by Pope Leo’s choice of “eliminate” as the manner in which the world disposes of Jesus. It had echoes of genocide in my ears. An impersonal, systematic, blanket killing by a state or regime to whom those whom it eliminates don’t register as individuals, as humans. The elimination is in service of ideology, power, domination.
Pope Leo next turns to an alternative response to the Christological question:
Then there is the other possible response to Jesus’ question: that of ordinary people. For them, the Nazarene is not a charlatan, but an upright man, one who has courage, who speaks well and says the right things, like other great prophets in the history of Israel. That is why they follow him, at least for as long as they can do so without too much risk or inconvenience. Yet to them he is only a man, and therefore, in times of danger, during his passion, they too abandon him and depart disappointed.
This is a step up. A recognition of another I, another person, even of righteousness, greatness, truth, but limited by convenience. These same attitudes that Jesus’ contemporaries exhibited persist into the present, where preference is given to “other securities […] like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure”.
How is such rejection to be responded to:?
These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.
Today, too, there are many settings in which Jesus, although appreciated as a man, is reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman. This is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptized Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism.
Note the important twist at the end: Pope Leo is not drawing a distinction between the Church and the World, but between friendship with Jesus and his reductive distortions. The distinction is not a rejection or shunning though, but a recognition of the calling for encounter.
This is the world that has been entrusted to us, a world in which, as Pope Francis taught us so many times, we are called to bear witness to our joyful faith in Jesus the Saviour. Therefore, it is essential that we too repeat, with Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16).
It is essential to do this, first of all, in our personal relationship with the Lord, in our commitment to a daily journey of conversion. Then, to do so as a Church, experiencing together our fidelity to the Lord and bringing the Good News to all (cf. Lumen Gentium, 1).
It is the joy of the Gospel that is to be shared, as Pope Francis also taught so clearly, which starts with my own personal and daily conversion (i.e., allowing myself to be changed by that gift of God’s closeness).
The homily is then brought to its conclusion with a powerful and stark reminder of what it takes to access divine joy:
I say this first of all to myself, as the Successor of Peter, as I begin my mission as Bishop of Rome and, according to the well-known expression of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, am called to preside in charity over the universal Church (cf. Letter to the Romans, Prologue). Saint Ignatius, who was led in chains to this city, the place of his impending sacrifice, wrote to the Christians there: “Then I will truly be a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world no longer sees my body” (Letter to the Romans, IV, 1). Ignatius was speaking about being devoured by wild beasts in the arena – and so it happened – but his words apply more generally to an indispensable commitment for all those in the Church who exercise a ministry of authority. It is to move aside so that Christ may remain, to make oneself small so that he may be known and glorified (cf. Jn 3:30), to spend oneself to the utmost so that all may have the opportunity to know and love him.
The self-noughting that Pope Leo proposes here to the cardinals and to those who exercise authority is in fact the invitation Jesus extends to everyone. Knowing Jesus, being his friend, requires “to spend oneself to the utmost so that all may have the opportunity to know and love him.” This is what leads to joy, a joy that invites imitation and closeness and that leads to God. And Pope Leo XIV does not mince his words about it.
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