- 27 July, 2025
Vatican City, July 27, 2025 – Addressing the faithful in St. Peter’s Square during Sunday’s Angelus, Pope Leo XIV delivered a powerful reflection on the “Our Father” prayer, urging believers to embody the kindness of God in their daily lives.
The Pope drew from the day’s Gospel, where Jesus teaches his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, emphasising its unifying power for Christians. “This is the prayer that unites all Christians,” he affirmed, noting how Jesus invites us to call God “Abba” — Father — with “childlike simplicity, filial trust… boldness, the certainty of being loved.”
Quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo highlighted how the Lord’s Prayer simultaneously reveals both the Father and our own identity as his children. “The more we pray with confidence to the Father,” he said, “the more we discover that we are beloved children and the more we come to know the greatness of his love.”
Reflecting further on the Gospel, the Pope pointed to the vivid imagery used to describe God’s fatherhood — a man who rises at night to help a friend, and a parent who ensures their children receive good things. These images, he said, reflect the reality that “God never turns his back on us when we come to him.” Even when answers to prayer seem delayed or unclear, “he acts with wisdom and providence, which are beyond our understanding.” Pope Leo urged the faithful to continue praying with trust, assuring them that God always provides “light and strength.”
As the Pope turned his focus back to the words of the “Our Father,” he reminded those gathered that this prayer is also a commitment: “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.”
Quoting Saint Cyprian of Carthage and Saint John Chrysostom, Pope Leo underscored the moral responsibility that comes with calling God our Father. “You cannot call the God of all kindness your Father,” he said, “if you preserve a cruel and inhuman heart.”
“We cannot pray to God as Father and then be harsh and insensitive towards others,” he continued. “We must let ourselves be transformed by his goodness, his patience, his mercy, so that his face may be reflected in ours as in a mirror.”
Concluding his message, Pope Leo encouraged the faithful to embrace the spirit of the day’s liturgy: to feel loved by God and to love in return — “with openness, discretion, mutual concern, and without deceit.”
Courtesy: Vatican News
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