In the Pope's Audience this Easter Wednesday, two themes stood out. The universal vocation to holiness, and Leo XIV's satisfaction with the “immediate truce” of two weeks in the Middle East war.
The Pope had said yesterday that it was unacceptable the threat expressed by U.S. President Donald Trump against the entire Iranian people. Today, Leo XIV has welcomed in the Audience “with satisfaction and a sign of lively hope the announcement of an immediate two-week truce” in the war.
“Only through a return to negotiations can the end of the war be achieved. I exhort to accompany in this time the diplomatic work “with prayer, hoping that availability and dialogue can be instruments to resolve these situations of conflict in the world”.
Prayer vigil for peace on Saturday 11th
The Pontiff then renewed the invitation to all to join me at the Vigil of Prayer for Peace to be held in St. Peter's Basilica on Saturday, April 11”.
The words of the Papa were welcomed by the thousands of pilgrims and Romans gathered in St. Peter's Square with great applause.
“Holiness is not the privilege of a few”.”
“The Council's Constitution Lumen Gentium (LG) on the Church devotes an entire chapter, the fifth, to the universal vocation to holiness of all the faithful.... Each one of us is called to live in God's grace, practicing the virtues and conforming ourselves to Christ,” the Pope began.
According to this conciliar document, “holiness is not a privilege of a few, but a gift that commits all the baptized to live the fullness of love for God and their brothers and sisters,” added the Successor of Peter.
And “the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, are the nourishment for growing in a holy life, that is, for being configured to Christ in virtue of the Holy Spirit”.
Charity is, in fact, the heart of the holiness to which all believers are called, and the highest level of holiness, as in the origin of the Church, is martyrdom, ‘supreme witness of faith and charity’ (LG, 50), the Holy Father said.
St. Paul VI: duty to be saints
Last Wednesday, when referring to the laity, The Pope quoted St. John Paul II and Pope Francis. Today, the Pope mentioned St. Paul VI. These were his words;
“He (Christ) sanctifies the Church, of which he is the Head and Shepherd: holiness is, from this point of view, his gift, which is manifested in our daily life every time we accept it with joy and respond to it with commitment.
In this regard, St. Paul VI, in the General Audience of October 20, 1965, recalled that the Church, in order to be authentic, wants all the baptized to ‘be saints, that is, truly her worthy, strong and faithful children’. This is realized as an interior transformation, whereby the life of each person is conformed to Christ by virtue of the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 8:29; LG, 40).
Sin and our conversion
In the midst of the celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord, as he reminded the pilgrims in several languages, the Pope also launched a message on “the sad reality of sin in the Church, that is, in all of us. And he invited ”each one of us to undertake a serious change of life, entrusting ourselves to the Lord, who renews us in charity“, in ”a mission that we must fulfill day after day: that of our conversion“.
Witness of consecrated life
Finally, the Holy Father referred to “consecrated persons, who bear witness to the universal vocation to holiness in the whole Church, in the form of a radical following. The evangelical counsels manifest the full participation in the life of Christ, even to the Cross: it is precisely through the sacrifice of the Crucified One that we are all redeemed and sanctified!”.
“Signs of the Kingdom of God, already present in the mystery of the Church, are those evangelical counsels which shape every experience of consecrated life: poverty, chastity and obedience,” Leo XIV pointed out. “These three virtues are not prescriptions that fetter freedom, but liberating gifts of the Holy Spirit, through which some of the faithful consecrate themselves totally to God.”.
In concluding, the Pope prayed that “the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Incarnate Word, may always sustain and protect our journey”.
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