During his weekly General Audience, Pope Leo XIV reflected on the heart of Christian identity: our adoption as beloved children of God, a truth fully revealed in Jesus Christ. Continuing his catechesis on the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, the Holy Father emphasized that divine revelation is not merely a transmission of ideas, but a living encounter with God who draws humanity into communion with Himself.
Speaking about the nature of revelation, Pope Leo XIV reminded the faithful that God reveals Himself through relationship, not abstraction. According to Vatican News, the Pope explained that revelation unfolds within a “dialogue of covenant,” in which God addresses humanity as friends and calls them into reciprocal communion. This revelation reaches its fulfillment in Christ, who stands as both mediator and fullness of God’s self-disclosure.
Quoting Dei Verbum, Pope Leo XIV stated that “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,” underscoring that God does not remain distant, but gives Himself personally in history through His Son.
At the heart of this revelation, the Pope said, is Jesus’ relationship with the Father. Through the Son, humanity is invited to share in that same intimacy. “Thanks to Jesus,” Pope Leo XIV said, “we know God as we are known by Him,” adding that 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,” according to Vatican News.
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The Holy Father also pointed to the reassurance found in the words of Christ Himself. Citing the Gospel of Matthew, he recalled Jesus’ promise: “Your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you,” and “your Father knows that you need all these things.” In Jesus, believers come to know a Father who sees, knows, and provides, not from afar, but from within the fabric of daily life.
Drawing from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, Pope Leo XIV reiterated that this filial relationship is not symbolic, but real. “When the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son … so that we might receive adoption as children,” and through the Spirit, believers are able to cry out, “Abba! Father!”
Central to the Pope’s catechesis was the insistence that Christ reveals the Father through His true humanity. According to Vatican News, Pope Leo XIV stressed that “in order to know God in Christ, we must welcome His integral humanity.” He cautioned against any understanding of faith that diminishes what is authentically human, noting that “the integrity of Jesus’ humanity does not diminish the fullness of the divine gift.”
Salvation, the Pope explained, is not found only in isolated moments of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection, but in His entire life. “It is not only the Death and Resurrection of Jesus that save us and call us together,” he said, “but His very person: the Lord who becomes incarnate, is born, heals, teaches, suffers, dies, rises again and remains among us.”
By sharing fully in human life, Jesus invites believers to see reality as He sees it, to love as He loves, and to trust the Father as He trusts Him. This journey, Pope Leo XIV concluded, leads to unshakable confidence in God’s mercy. Quoting Saint Paul once more, he reminded the faithful: “If God is for us, who is against us?”
According to Vatican News, the Holy Father ended his catechesis by affirming that by following Christ to the end, believers come to the certainty that nothing can ever separate them from the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
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