Newly elected Pope Leo XIV concelebrates Mass with the School of Cardinals contained in the Sistine Chapel on the Vatican the day after his election as 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, Friday, Could 9, 2025.
AP/Vatican media
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ROME — Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first Mass as pope Friday morning within the Sistine Chapel. In attendance had been the cardinals who elected him on Thursday.
Leo spoke briefly in English earlier than his homily, saying:
“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 have a good time this morning, I invite you to mirror on the marvels the Lord has achieved, the blessings that the Lord continues to pour out on all of us by the Ministry of Peter.
“You have called me to carry that cross, and to carry out 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.”
Throughout his homily, delivered in Italian, Leo stated that Christians should serve a world that’s usually hostile to their beliefs.
“Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.
“These are contexts the place it’s not simple to evangelise the Gospel and bear witness to its fact, the place believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at finest tolerated and pitied. But, exactly for that reason, they’re the locations the place our missionary outreach is desperately wanted. An absence of religion is usually tragically accompanied by the lack of that means in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the disaster of the household and so many different wounds that afflict our society.”
Here is the full homily, as translated from the Italian by the Vatican:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). In these phrases, Peter, requested by the Grasp, along with the opposite disciples, about his religion in him, expressed the patrimony that the Church, by the apostolic succession, has preserved, deepened and handed on for 2 thousand years.
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the dwelling God: the one Saviour, who alone reveals the face of the Father.
In him, God, to be able to make himself shut and accessible to women and men, revealed himself to us within the trusting eyes of a kid, within the energetic thoughts of a teenager and within the mature options of a person (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22), lastly showing to his disciples after the resurrection along with his superb physique. He thus confirmed us a mannequin of human holiness that we will all imitate, along with the promise of an everlasting future that transcends all our limits and talents.
Peter, in his response, understands each of these items: the present of God and the trail to observe to be able to enable himself to be modified by that present. They’re two inseparable facets of salvation entrusted to the Church to be proclaimed for the great of the human race. Certainly, they’re entrusted to us, who had been chosen by him earlier than we had been fashioned in our moms’ wombs (cf. Jer 1:5), reborn within the waters of Baptism and, surpassing our limitations and with no advantage of our personal, introduced right here and despatched forth from right here, in order that the Gospel is perhaps proclaimed to each creature (cf. Mk 16:15).
In a selected means, God has known as me by your election to succeed the Prince of the Apostles, and has entrusted this treasure to me in order that, along with his assist, I could also be its devoted administrator (cf. 1 Cor 4:2) for the sake of all the mystical Physique of the Church. He has achieved so so that she could also be ever extra totally a metropolis set on a hill (cf. Rev 21:10), an ark of salvation crusing by the waters of historical past and a beacon that illumines the darkish nights of this world. And this, not a lot by the magnificence of her buildings or the grandeur of her buildings – just like the monuments amongst which we discover ourselves – however relatively by the holiness of her members. For we’re the folks whom God has chosen as his personal, in order that we might declare the fantastic deeds of him who known as us out of darkness into his marvellous gentle (cf. 1 Pet 2:9).
Peter, nevertheless, makes his career of religion in reply to a selected query: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Mt 16:13). The query is just not insignificant. It issues a necessary side of our ministry, particularly, the world during which we reside, with its limitations and its potential, its questions and its convictions.
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” If we mirror on the scene we’re contemplating, we’d discover two potential solutions, which characterize two completely different attitudes.
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, second from left, concelebrates Mass with the School of Cardinals contained in the Sistine Chapel on the Vatican the day after his election as 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, Friday, Could 9, 2025.
AP/Vatican media
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AP/Vatican media
First, there may be the world’s response. Matthew tells us that this dialog between Jesus and his disciples takes place within the stunning city of Caesarea Philippi, stuffed with luxurious palaces, set in an impressive pure panorama on the foot of Mount Hermon, but additionally a spot of merciless energy performs and the scene of betrayals and infidelity. This setting speaks to us of a world that considers Jesus a totally insignificant particular person, at finest somebody with an uncommon and putting means of talking and appearing. And so, as soon as his presence turns into irksome due to his calls for for honesty and his stern ethical necessities, this “world” won’t hesitate to reject and remove him.
Then there may be the opposite potential response to Jesus’ query: that of odd folks. For them, the Nazarene is just not a charlatan, however an upright man, one who has braveness, who speaks effectively and says the correct issues, like different nice prophets within the historical past of Israel. That’s the reason they observe him, at the least for so long as they’ll accomplish that with out an excessive amount of danger or inconvenience. But to them he’s solely a person, and due to this fact, in occasions of hazard, throughout his ardour, they too abandon him and depart upset.
What’s putting about these two attitudes is their relevance right this moment. They embody notions that we might simply discover on the lips of many women and men in our personal time, even when, whereas basically an identical, they’re expressed in several language.
Even right this moment, there are numerous settings during which the Christian religion is taken into account absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings the place different securities are most well-liked, like know-how, cash, success, energy, or pleasure.
These are contexts the place it’s not simple to evangelise the Gospel and bear witness to its fact, the place believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at finest tolerated and pitied. But, exactly for that reason, they’re the locations the place our missionary outreach is desperately wanted. An absence of religion is usually tragically accompanied by the lack of that means in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the disaster of the household and so many different wounds that afflict our society.
In the present day, too, there are numerous settings during which Jesus, though appreciated as a person, is decreased to a sort of charismatic chief or superman. That is true not solely amongst non-believers but additionally amongst many baptized Christians, who thus find yourself dwelling, at this stage, in a state of sensible atheism.
That is the world that has been entrusted to us, a world during which, as Pope Francis taught us so many occasions, we’re known as to bear witness to our joyful religion in Jesus the Saviour. Subsequently, it’s important that we too repeat, with Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16).
It’s important to do that, initially, in our private relationship with the Lord, in our dedication to a each day journey of conversion. Then, to take action as a Church, experiencing collectively our constancy to the Lord and bringing the Good Information to all (cf. Lumen Gentium, 1).
I say this initially to myself, because the Successor of Peter, as I start my mission as Bishop of Rome and, in response to the well-known expression of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, am known as to preside in charity over the common Church (cf. Letter to the Romans, Prologue). Saint Ignatius, who was led in chains to this metropolis, 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 talking about being devoured by wild beasts within the enviornment – and so it occurred – however his phrases apply extra typically to an indispensable dedication for all these within the Church who train a ministry of authority. It’s to maneuver apart in order that Christ might stay, to make oneself small in order that he could also be recognized and glorified (cf. Jn 3:30), to spend oneself to the utmost so that each one might have the chance to know and love him.
Could God grant me this grace, right this moment and at all times, by the loving intercession of Mary, Mom of the Church.
