Over the coming weeks, we will feature extracts from the homilies of Pope Leo XIV, to mark his inauguration and to help us get to know him. Today’s extract comes from his address to cardinals on 10th May, 2 days after his election, setting out themes of his pontificate.
In these days, we have seen the true grandeur of the Church, which is alive in the rich variety of her members in union with her one Head, Christ, “the shepherd and guardian” (1 Peter 2:25) of our souls. She is the womb from which we were born and at the same time the flock (cf. Jn 21:15-17), the field (cf. Mk 4:1-20) entrusted to us to protect and cultivate, to nourish with the sacraments of salvation and to make fruitful by our sowing the seed of the Word, so that, steadfast in one accord and enthusiastic in mission, she may press forward, like the Israelites in the desert, in the shadow of the cloud and in the light of God’s fire (cf. Ex 13:21).
I would like us to renew together today our complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis set it forth in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, and I highlight: the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation (cf. No. 11); the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community (cf. No. 9); growth in collegiality and synodality (cf. No. 33); attention to the sensus fidei (cf. Nos. 119-120), especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, such as popular piety (cf. No. 123); loving care for the least and the rejected (cf. No. 53); courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and realities.