At Mass in Gran Canaria, the Pope said Christ’s love does not merely lift up the wounded, but helps them regain confidence, dignity, and hope.
The love of God shown to us in “the humanity of the Savior and in the movements of his Most Sacred Heart” is “immutable and faithful even in the face of incomprehension and rejection, fear, sadness, and human resistance.” Pope Leo XIV spoke in these terms to the faithful during his homily for Mass at the Gran Canaria Stadium on Thursday, June 11.
[Note: This article is written with an Aleteia translation of the Pope's words as the official translation was not available yet. When the official translation is available it will be here.]
God is “in love” with his people, and “totally and constantly desires what is good for us and our full happiness,” the Pope explained. We in turn are called to reciprocate that love to God and to “serve the brothers and sisters whom he puts on our path,” he added.
This is not something imposed on us from outside, because “love is part of human nature; or rather, it is the condition for reaching the fullness of [every human being’s] very existence,” he explained.
The love of “Christ’s Heart [...] goes beyond” just lifting up those who are weak, vulnerable, or have fallen. The love of Jesus’ Sacred Heart commits itself “to help each person not only survive, but regain their confidence and start walking again, to grow and flourish,” he added. And we can only mirror this love faithfully if we, like him, are humble.
Giving love in return for love
The Pope’s reflections arise from the readings used at the Mass he celebrated. He first refers to the reading from Deuteronomy. God reminds the Israelites that he chose them “not because they had any particular privileges, gifts, or merits, but out of pure love,” the Pope says. And God “will continue to love them always, even when, because of their hard heart, they don’t reciprocate his sentiments.”
This selfless divine love is the soil “in which our vocation to love sinks its roots,” Pope Leo XIV explained. It’s not based on “calculation” or “mere sentiment,” and isn’t “simple philanthropy” either. It should “invade our entire being: fire for the soul, light for the mind, an impulse our freedom finds irresistible, [and] peace.” At the same time, this burning love feels the pain of those around us who suffer, thus becoming “torment for the heart.”
This “immutable and faithful” divine love of the Sacred Heart reveals to us “the path of life.” It teaches us “a new way of existing and of relating to each other” and thus “a different criterion for evaluating decisions, a renewed and stimulating way” of creating communion.
In short, he says, we must give love in return for love. But again, this is not an abstract love for an invisible God. Quoting Pope Francis’ encyclical Dilexit Nos, “our best response to the love of Christ’s heart is to love our brothers and sisters” — especially, Leo XIV adds, “those who are most in need, defenseless, and incapable of giving anything in return.”
Not just lifting up, but helping others to rise
The Holy Father then turns to the second reading, from the First Letter of John. This text reminds us that “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” This was manifested in many ways in Jesus’ words and life, such as the healing of a paralytic (Mc 2:9). Here, the Pope says, we must “recognize the invitation” to not only “maternally embrace those who suffer,” but also “encourage the wounded to get up and start to walk again,” so they can live “a free and dignified life.”
We need not just to offer material assistance to those in need, but to “integrate people” into the community so they can fully develop spiritually, intellectually, and physically. Here, the pontiff was indirectly referring to the crisis of migrants arriving in European countries in situations of poverty and vulnerability. He had addressed this issue, an open wound on the Canary Islands, head-on earlier in the day.
Only the humble can hear the beating of the Sacred Heart
In the Gospel reading, Pope Leo XIV found the last key characteristic of the Sacred Heart that he wished to describe: humility. “The Heart of Jesus is humble, and for this reason, the ‘learned,’ the ‘wise,’” the proud and self-sufficient, “cannot hear his heartbeat.” They are “deafened by the clamor” of their ego, and lack the interior “silence needed to listen to the hidden heartbeat of love in themselves and in their brothers and sisters.”
We must “get off our pedestals of arrogance” that divide us to “find each other in the humility that makes us brothers and sisters,” the Pope explains.
Here, he quotes his spiritual father, Saint Augustine: “Where there is love, there is peace, and where there is humility, there is love.” This is because, Leo XIV adds, “only in humility do we really know who we are, and therefore, we can love each other, encounter each other, give ourselves to each other, and truly forgive each other.”
The Pope concludes with a powerful reminder: “We are the living presence of the Lord in the world. Therefore, let us look at each other [...] always, with respect and confidence. And let us renew, with this awareness, our commitment to accomplish in ourselves, in love, what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, for the good of the church.”
“Set aflame with the love of his Heart, may we be bearers of his mercy and of his peace, so that wars may cease in the world, and a new humanity can grow around us, reconciled in love.”
