The human longing for love is not a sign of weakness but demonstrates that no one is completely self-sufficient and that salvation comes from letting oneself be loved and helped by God, Pope Leo XIV said. Source: OSV News.
“No one can save themselves. Life is ‘fulfilled’ not when we are strong, but when we learn how to receive,” the Pope told tens of thousands of people gathered in St Peter’s Square yesterday for his weekly general audience.
He also pleaded for international assistance for the Sudan, which is experiencing violence, famine, natural disasters, and disease.
“I am closer than ever to the Sudanese population, in particular families, children and the displaced,” Leo said at the end of his general audience.
“I pray for all the victims,” the pontiff added. “I make a heartfelt appeal to leaders and to the international community to guarantee humanitarian corridors and implement a coordinated response to stop this humanitarian catastrophe.”
In his main talk, Pope Leo continued his series of reflections on lessons of hope from the Gospel stories of Jesus’s last days and focused on the 19th chapter of the Gospel of John where Jesus on the cross says, “I thirst”.
“If even the son of God chose not to be self-sufficient, then our thirst, too – for love, for meaning, for justice – is a sign not of failure, but of truth,” the Pope said.
Jesus’s thirst is not just physical, the Pope said; it is “above all the expression of a profound desire: that of love, of relationship, of communion. It is the silent cry of a God who, having wished to share everything of our human condition, also lets himself be overcome by this thirst.”
By not being afraid to ask for something to drink, Jesus “tells us that love, in order to be true, must also learn to ask and not only to give.”
Admitting the need for help, “our fragility is a bridge toward heaven,” he said.
“There is nothing more human, nothing more divine, than being able to say: ‘I need’,” Pope Leo told the crowd. “Let us not be afraid to ask, especially when it seems to us that we do not deserve. Let us not be ashamed to reach out our hand. It is right there, in that humble gesture, that salvation hides.”
FULL STORY
Salvation comes from being strong enough to ask God for help, Pope says (OSV News)
Pope Leo XIV pleads for help for ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Sudan (By Victoria Cardiel and Hannah Brockhaus, CNA)
