Pope Leo XIV

Conscious Love

The pope has given 10 homilies. He is a clear communicator, choosing to give homilies that are in and around 10 minutes.

Let’s begin with his brilliant homily at the Tomb of St. Paul on 20 May 2025.

The homily uses experience to understand three gifts of God: grace, faith and justification.

Leo speaks of the experience of St. Paul, St. Augustine and no doubt his own experience of God:

How can we choose, unless we have first been chosen. We cannot love, unless someone has loved us first (Augustine, Sermon 34).

Grace comes first and it arouses faith, and faith enables us to make decisions to love God and to love others. When this happens, we experience something more.

We experience not only being saved by Jesus, but being healed by Jesus, and this is known as justification. It is a beautiful reality, flowing from the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The pope finishes by citing Pope Benedict XVI:

God loves us. Faith leads us to open our hearts to this mystery of love and to live as men and women conscious of being loved by God.

Good to be conscious of love.

Amen.