At his Wednesday General Audience in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV offered a powerful reminder of the responsibility Christians share in shaping a more compassionate and sustainable world. Speaking during his catechesis series on “Jesus Christ, Our Hope,” the Holy Father emphasized that the Resurrection must transform not only personal hearts but public action.
According to Vatican News, Pope Leo XIV said Christians are called “to reverse course,” insisting that Jesus asks believers to “change history.” The Pope reflected on how the Risen Christ reshapes every relationship, our relationship with God, with one another, and with creation.
Drawing on the Gospel account of Easter morning, he recalled how Mary Magdalene initially mistook the risen Jesus for a gardener. “She was not entirely mistaken then, believing she had encountered the gardener!” he said, according to the report. The Pope noted that the moment Mary heard Jesus speak her name marked not only recognition, but mission: a turning point that symbolizes how believers must allow grace to redirect their lives.
This theme of conversion extended into the Pope’s reflections on care for creation. According to Vatican News, he highlighted the teaching of Pope Francis in Laudato si’, saying that without a contemplative gaze, humanity risks becoming “the destroyer” rather than the custodian of God’s garden. Pope Leo stressed that the Death and Resurrection of Christ form “the foundation of a spirituality of integral ecology,” insisting that ecological concern is inseparable from Christian hope.
For the Pope, this “ecological conversion” is not an optional dimension of faith but part of the “reversal of course that Jesus asks,” as cited by the Vatican News report. This spiritual turning, he explained, must move outward into real engagement, becoming a force for solidarity with those who suffer—both people and the natural world.
“This passage, which begins in the heart and is spiritual, changes history,” he said, urging Catholics to protect “people and creatures from the longings of wolves, in the name and power of the Lamb-Shepherd.”
The Holy Father also noted that the Church today stands alongside “millions of young people” who already feel “the cry of the poor and the earth,” according to the source. Their concern, he suggested, is a sign of a new readiness to act with moral clarity.
He concluded with a prayer for the grace of deeper compassion: “May the Spirit give us the ability to listen to the voice of those who have no voice.” In doing so, he said, Christians begin to glimpse “that garden, or Paradise, which we will only reach by welcoming and fulfilling our own task.”
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