“We cannot pray to God as ‘Father’ and then be harsh and insensitive towards others,” Pope Leo XIV told those assembled in St. Peter’s Square July 27 for his first Angelus address since returning from Castel Gandolfo.
His address, drawn from the day’s Gospel reading Luke 11:1-13, focused on the Our Father.
“This is the prayer that unites all Christians, in which the Lord invites us to address God as ‘Abba,’ ‘Father,’ with childlike ‘simplicity, filial trust… boldness, the certainty of being loved,’” the Holy Father said, quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
He drew out two images used in Scripture to help us understand the fatherhood spoken of in the prayer: a man awaking in the night to help a friend welcome a surprise guest and a parent who wants to give good things to his children.
“These images remind us that God never turns his back on us when we come to him, even if we arrive late to knock at his door, perhaps after mistakes, missed opportunities, failures, or even if, in order to welcome us, he has to ‘wake up’ his children who are sleeping at home,” he said.
Pope Leo emphasized that the Our Father has a twofold task: it helps us to know both the Father and ourselves.
“Indeed, how true this is, for the more we pray with confidence to our heavenly Father, the more we discover that we are beloved children and the more we come to know the greatness of his love,” said Pope Leo.
This twofold knowledge, the Pope emphasized, should be an opportunity to be moved to love by the transformative grace of Christ.
“When we recite the Our Father, in addition to celebrating the grace of being children of God, we also express our commitment to responding to this gift by loving one another as brothers and sisters in Christ,” he told the crowd.
In explaining this point, the Holy Father drew on the writings of two Church Fathers, Saint Cyprian of Carthage and Saint John Chrysostom.
“It is important to let ourselves be transformed by his goodness, his patience, his mercy, so that his face may be reflected in ours as in a mirror,” Pope Leo said.
The Holy Father closed his address by encouraging the faithful to ask for Mary’s intercession to help us “respond to this call.”
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