Homily of Pope Leo xiv at Papal Mass for the possession of the chair of the Bishop of Rome
Lateran Basilica – 6th Sunday in the Time of Easter, 25 May 2025
” The Spirit sustains us and shows us the way to follow,
“teaching” us and “reminding” us of all that Jesus said to us”
I cordial greet the Cardinals present, especially the Cardinal Vicar, the Auxiliary Bishops, all the Bishops and the priests – parish priests, parochial vicars and all those who collaborate in various ways in the pastoral care of our communities. My greeting also goes to the deacons, the men and women religious, the civil authorities and all of you, the dear lay faithful.
The Church of Rome is the heir of a great history, founded on the witness of Peter, Paul and countless martyrs, and she has a unique mission, as we see from the inscription on the façade of this Cathedral: to be Mater omnium Ecclesiarum, Mother of all the Churches.
Pope Francis has often encouraged us to reflect on the maternal dimension of the Church and her characteristic qualities of tenderness, self-sacrifice and the capacity to listen. (see (Evangelii Gaudium, 46-49,139-141; in footnotes below)
Thrse qualities enable her not only to help others but often to anticipate their needs and expectations even before they are expressed.
We hope that these qualities will be increasingly present in the People of God everywhere, including here, in our great diocesan family: in the faithful, in the Pastors, and, above all, in myself.
The readings we have heard can help us to reflect on these qualities.
In particular, the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 15:1-2 on circumcision: Acts 15:22-27 on various abstentions Basiland unchastity) describe how the early Christian community faced the challenge of opening to the pagan world in its proclamation of the Gospel.
This was not easy; it requires much patience and mutual listening.
This was the case in the church at Antioch, where the brothers worked out the issue together through dialogue – and even disagreement.
Paul and Barnabas then went up to Jerusalem. They did not settle the question on their own: they wanted to be in communion with the Mother Church and so they went there with humility.
In Jerusalem, they found Peter and the Apostles, who were prepared to listen to them.
This was the beginning of a dialogue that, in the end, led to the right decision.
Recognizing the difficulties of the new converts, they agreed not to overburden them, but rather to insist only on what was essential (cf. Acts 15:28-29 – if you keep away from these, you will do well).
In this way, what could have been a problem became an opportunity for reflection and growth for everyone.
But the biblical text tells us something else, beyond the rich and interesting human dynamics of the event. We see this in the words with which the brothers in Jerusalem communicated their decisions to those in Antioch.
They wrote: “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (cf. Acts 15:28).
In other words, they emphasized that the most important part of the whole event was listening to God’s voice, which made everything else possible.
In this way, they remind us that communion is built above all “on our knees,” through prayer and constant commitment to conversion.
t is only in this way that each one of us can hear within us the voice of the Spirit, which cries out: “Abba! Father!” (Gal 4:6) and then, as a result, listen to and understand others as our brothers and sisters.
The Gospel confirms this point (Jn 14:23-29 – 23 Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.25 “These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe).
He assures us that we are not alone in making our choices in life.
The Spirit sustains us and shows us the way to follow by “teaching” us “reminding” us of all that Jesus said to us ( John 14:26 – highlighted above).
First, the Spirit teaches us the Lord’s words by engraving them deep within us, no longer written on tablets of stone, as the biblical image would have it, but in our hearts (Jer 31:33 – this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.).
This gift helps us grow and become “a letter of Christ” (2 Cor 3:3 – you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts) for one another.
Of course, the more we let ourselves be convinced and transformed by the Gospel — allowing the power of the Spirit to purify our hearts, to make our words straightforward, our desires honest and clear, and our actions generous — the more able we are to proclaim its message.
Here, the other verb comes into play: we remember, that is, we reflect in our hearts upon what we have experienced and learned, in order to understand more fully its meaning and to savor its beauty.
In this regard, I am thinking of the demanding process of listening that the Diocese of Rome has undertaken in these years, a process that has been carried out at various levels: listening to the world around us in order to respond to its challenges, and listening within our communities in order to understand needs and to propose wise and prophetic initiatives of evangelisation and charity.
This has been a challenging and continuous journey, which has had to embrace a very rich and complex reality.
But it is worthy of the history of this local Church, which has shown time and again that it is capable of “thinking big”, unafraid to embark on bold projects and to face new and challenging scenarios.
This is evident in the great effort and the many initiatives that the diocese has taken to welcome and provide for the needs of pilgrims during this Jubilee. Thank you!
They have made the city of Rome appear to the visitors, some of whom came from afar, as a wide open and welcoming home and, above all, as a place of deep faith.
For my part, I would like to express my firm desire to contribute to this great ongoing process by listening to everyone as much as possible, in order to learn, understand and decide things together, as Saint Augustine would say, “as a Christian with you and a Bishop for you” (cf. Sermon. 340, 1).
I would also ask you to support me in prayer and charity, remembering the words of St. Leo the Great: “All the good we do in the exercise of our ministry is the work of Christ and not our own, for we can do nothing without him. Yet we glory in him, from whom all the effectiveness of our work is derived” (Sermon 5, De Natali Ipsius, 4).
I would like to conclude by adding the words with which Blessed John Paul I, whose joyful and serene face had already earned him the nickname of “the smiling Pope,” greeted his new diocesan family on 23 September 1978. He said “St. Pius X. upon entering Venice as Patriarch, exclaimed in St. Mark’s Basilica: ‘What would become of me, dear Venetians, if I did not love you?’
I would say something similar to you Romans: I assure you that I love you, that only wish to be at your service and to place my own poor abilities, the little that I have and am, at the service of all”
I too express my affection for you and my desire to share with you, on our journey together, our joys and sorrows, our struggles and hopes our hopes as we walk together.
I too offer you “what little I have and am,” entrusting it to the intercession of Sts. Peter and Paul and of all those other brothers and sisters of ours whose holiness has illuminated the history of this Church and the streets of this city.
May the Virgin Mary accompany us and intercede for us.
Evangelii Gaudium 46-49
V. A mother with an open heart
46. A Church which “goes forth” is a Church whose doors are open. Going out to others in order to reach the fringes of humanity does not mean rushing out aimlessly into the world. Often it is better simply to slow down, to put aside our eagerness in order to see and listen to others, to stop rushing from one thing to another and to remain with someone who has faltered along the way. At times we have to be like the father of the prodigal son, who always keeps his door open so that when the son returns, he can readily pass through it.
47. The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open. One concrete sign of such openness is that our church doors should always be open, so that if someone, moved by the Spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door. There are other doors that should not be closed either. Everyone can share in some way in the life of the Church; everyone can be part of the community, nor should the doors of the sacraments be closed for simply any reason. This is especially true of the sacrament which is itself “the door”: baptism. The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.[51] These convictions have pastoral consequences that we are called to consider with prudence and boldness. Frequently, we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems.
48. If the whole Church takes up this missionary impulse, she has to go forth to everyone without exception. But to whom should she go first? When we read the Gospel we find a clear indication: not so much our friends and wealthy neighbours, but above all the poor and the sick, those who are usually despised and overlooked, “those who cannot repay you” (Lk 14:14). There can be no room for doubt or for explanations which weaken so clear a message. Today and always, “the poor are the privileged recipients of the Gospel”,[52] and the fact that it is freely preached to them is a sign of the kingdom that Jesus came to establish. We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them.
49. Let us go forth, then, let us go forth to offer everyone the life of Jesus Christ. Here I repeat for the entire Church what I have often said to the priests and laity of Buenos Aires: I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and which then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures. If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life. More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving and Jesus does not tire of saying to us: “Give them something to eat” (Mk 6:37).
Evangelii Gaudium 139-141
A mother’s conversation
139. We said that the people of God, by the constant inner working of the Holy Spirit, is constantly evangelizing itself. What are the implications of this principle for preachers? It reminds us that the Church is a mother, and that she preaches in the same way that a mother speaks to her child, knowing that the child trusts that what she is teaching is for his or her benefit, for children know that they are loved. Moreover, a good mother can recognize everything that God is bringing about in her children, she listens to their concerns and learns from them. The spirit of love which reigns in a family guides both mother and child in their conversations; therein they teach and learn, experience correction and grow in appreciation of what is good. Something similar happens in a homily. The same Spirit who inspired the Gospels and who acts in the Church also inspires the preacher to hear the faith of the God’s people and to find the right way to preach at each Eucharist. Christian preaching thus finds in the heart of people and their culture a source of living water, which helps the preacher to know what must be said and how to say it. Just as all of us like to be spoken to in our mother tongue, so too in the faith we like to be spoken to in our “mother culture,” our native language (cf. 2 Macc 7:21, 27), and our heart is better disposed to listen. This language is a kind of music which inspires encouragement, strength and enthusiasm.
140. This setting, both maternal and ecclesial, in which the dialogue between the Lord and his people takes place, should be encouraged by the closeness of the preacher, the warmth of his tone of voice, the unpretentiousness of his manner of speaking, the joy of his gestures. Even if the homily at times may be somewhat tedious, if this maternal and ecclesial spirit is present, it will always bear fruit, just as the tedious counsels of a mother bear fruit, in due time, in the hearts of her children.
141. One cannot but admire the resources that the Lord used to dialogue with his people, to reveal his mystery to all and to attract ordinary people by his lofty teachings and demands. I believe that the secret lies in the way Jesus looked at people, seeing beyond their weaknesses and failings: “Fear not little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Lk 12:32); Jesus preaches with that spirit. Full of joy in the Spirit, he blesses the Father who draws the little ones to him: “I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes” (Lk 10:21). The Lord truly enjoys talking with his people; the preacher should strive to communicate that same enjoyment to his listeners
