This morning’s General Audience took place at 10.00 in the Paul VI Hall, where the Holy Father Leo XIV met with groups of pilgrims and faithful from Italy and all over the world.
In his address in Italian, the Pope focused on the theme “The Documents of Vatican Council II. The Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum. 2. Jesus Christ reveals the Father” (Reading: Jn 14.6-8).
After summarizing his catechesis in various languages, the Holy Father addressed special greetings to the faithful present.
The General Audience concluded with the recitation of the Pater Noster and the Apostolic Blessing.
Catechesis. The Documents of Vatican Council II. The Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum. 2. Jesus Christ reveals the Father
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
We will continue the catecheses on the Dogmatic Constituion Dei Verbum, of Vatican Council II, on divine Revelation. We have seen that God reveals himself in a dialogue of covenant, in which he addresses us as friends. It is therefore a relational knowledge, which not only communicates ideas, but shares a history and calls for communion in reciprocity. The fulfilment of this revelation takes place in a historical and personal encounter in which God himself gives himself to us, making himself present, and we discover that we are known in our deepest truth. It is what happens in Jesus Christ. The Document states: “The deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation” (DV, 2).
Jesus reveals the Father to us by involving us in his own relationship with Him. In the Son sent by God the Father “man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature” (ibid.). We therefore reach full knowledge of God by entering into the Son’s relationship with his Father, by virtue of the action of the Spirit. This is attested to, for example, by the Evangelist Luke when he recounts the Lord’s prayer of jubilation: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Lk 10:21-22).
Thanks to Jesus we know God as we are known by Him (cf. Gal 4:9); 1 Cor 13:13). Indeed, in Christ, God has communicated himself to us and, at the same time, he has manifested to us our true identity as his children, created in the image of the Word. This “eternal Word … enlightens all men” (DV 4), revealing their truth in the eyes of the Father: “Your Father, who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:5; 6:8), says Jesus, and he adds that “your Father knows that you need all these things” (cf. Mt 6:32). Jesus Christ is the place where we recognize the truth of God the Father, while we discover ourselves known by Him as sons in the Son, called to the same destiny of full life. Saint Paul writes: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son … so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba!’, Father!” (Gal 4:4-6).
Finally, Jesus Christ reveals the Father with his own humanity. Precisely because he is the Word incarnate that dwells among men, Jesus reveals God to us with his own true and integral humanity: “To see Jesus is to see His Father (Jn 14:9). For this reason, Jesus perfected revelation, fulfilling it through his whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth” (DV, 4). In order to know God in Christ, we must welcome his integral humanity: God’s truth is not fully revealed where it takes something away from the human, just as the integrity of Jesus’ humanity does not diminish the fullness of the divine gift. It is the integral humanity of Jesus that tells us the truth of the Father (cf. Jn 1:18).
It is not only the death and resurrection of Jesus that saves us and calls us together, but his very person: the Lord who becomes incarnate, is born, heals, teaches, suffers, dies, rises again and remains among us. Therefore, to honour the greatness of the Incarnation, it is not enough to consider Jesus as the channel of transmission of intellectual truths. If Jesus has a real body, the communication of the truth of God is realized in that body, with its own way of perceiving and feeling reality, with its own way of inhabiting and passing through the world. Jesus himself invites us to share his perception of reality: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Mt 6:26).
Brothers and sisters, by following the path of Jesus to the very end, we reach the certainty that nothing can separate us from God’s love. “If God is for us, who is against us?”, writes Saint Paul again. “He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else?” (Rom 8:31-32). Thanks to Jesus, Christians know God the Father and entrust themselves to Him with confidence.
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Summary of the Holy Father’s words
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today we continue our Catechesis on the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum of the Second Vatican Council by considering the role of the Son of God in Divine Revelation. God’s revelation of himself to his people through words and deeds over the centuries reached its fulfilment in the incarnation of the Word, when God became man. Indeed, “the most intimate truth revealed about God and human salvation shines forth in Christ, who is himself both the mediator and the fulfilment of revelation” (Dei Verbum, 2). The Son, through his incarnation, life, death and resurrection, not only allows us to see the Father in him, but also invites us to enter into his very own relationship with the Father, by virtue of the action of the Spirit. By accepting this invitation, we become sons and daughters through the Son and participants in God’s nature. Let us be filled with gratitude as we ponder our sublime vocation as God’s beloved children, entrusting ourselves to the Father with boundless confidence.
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Greeting in English
I greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, particularly the groups from Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States of America. As we continue to pray for the unity of Christians, I greet the Ecumenical Delegation of the Catholic Association for Ecumenism and the Council of Churches of the Netherlands. Upon all of you and your families, I invoke the joy and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. God bless you all!
