Praise be Jesus Christ. A very warm welcome to St. Peter's Square here in the Vatican for Wednesday's general audience with Pope Leo XIV. If you are watching this on your screen, you can already see there is an air of festivity in the square. I'm Father Paul Samasumo, and we are coming to you live on this broadcast. On behalf of Vatican Media, I would like to welcome all of you joining us on this live broadcast. As always, a special welcome to our official partner television and radio broadcasters: Luminous Radio India, Radio Maria England, Catholic Faith Network, Catholic TV, Shalom World Television, EWTN, Salt and Light TV, and Madashan Television in India. To those of you joining us through our Vatican News website, on our Vatican News or our Vatican News social media channels — and we do have many of them — you are most welcome. If you are picking up this broadcast on shortwave radio frequency, we are so glad that you found time to participate in this general audience with the Pope, and to our Catholic national diocesan and religious-owned Catholic radio or television stations around the world. A most warm welcome to all of you. Right now, as you can see on your screens, the Holy Father is making the usual rounds of St. Peter's Square in his popemobile, greeting pilgrims and blessing children whenever they are brought to him.
This week the whole Church is waiting for the feast of Pentecost on Sunday. Yesterday the Vatican announced the upcoming release of Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. It is on safeguarding the human person in a time of artificial intelligence. The encyclical will be released on the 25th of May. It bears the signature of the Holy Father, but it is dated the 15th of May. It was signed on the 15th of May. This is a special day because on 15 May 1891, 135 years ago, on that very day another Pope Leo, Pope Leo XIII, published the groundbreaking encyclical Rerum Novarum. So on the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIV also publishes the encyclical, his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. It will be presented on the 25th of May in the Vatican Synod Hall. The Pope will also be present.
Along with him will be several speakers: Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; the Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Professor Annie Rollands; and several many other experts, including Professor Leo Shambo, professor of political and theology and Catholic social thought at the Jesuit School of Theology, Santa Clara University in California, USA.
In his catechesis during last week's Wednesday general audience, the Holy Father Pope Leo XIV dedicated the general audience to the Blessed Virgin Mary, highlighting her as the perfect model and mother of the Church. The Pope's catechesis last week coincided with the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. In the Wednesday general audience of today, we expect the Holy Father to continue his reflection on the conciliar documents of the Second Vatican Council. The Pope will focus today on the document Sacrosanctum Concilium. It is the constitution on the sacred liturgy, and it is considered the foundational 1963 Second Vatican Council document that reformed Catholic worship for the way we worship today.
The general audience should begin when the Holy Father reaches the main platform or the stage in the square of St. Peter's, and this is where all the activities or the events of the general audience take place. First we will hear from the reading; a text will be read, and it will be read in the various languages. The Holy Father, of course, will start with the sign of the cross, and as I said, we'll listen to the proclamation of the Scripture reading in the various languages. After the proclamation of the Scripture reading, the Pope will give a brief teaching, which is his catechesis.
There is a big crowd here. Pilgrims from all over the world. 20,000 is the estimate that has been given to me. We have members from England — this is the staff members of the British Embassy to the Holy See and the British representative to FAO. We have students and teachers from Ireland, Lorto Secondary School in Clomill, and members of the Society of the Precious Blood congregations from the Doma in Tanzania. We have the Apostolic Life community of priests in the Ous Spiritual Sancti, that is in Moshi Diocese of Tanzania. We have pilgrims from Mumbai in India, pilgrims from the Catholic Yamagu Church in Japan, pilgrims from Malaysia — members of their clergy and consecrated persons. Also from the Philippines, we have pilgrims from the Diocese of Caloocan. Right now the Holy Father ascending to go to the stage is still in his popemobile, and there is a band here that is playing as the Holy Father passes, and they give him a grand salute.
We also have pilgrims, a group of entrepreneurs from Vietnam, entrepreneurs and doctors who are resident in the United States of America. They are from the Vietnamese community and patrons of arts in the Vatican Museums from Canada. Students from the University of Prince Edward Island also visiting on pilgrimage to the Vatican. Many other pilgrims from the United States: the Archdiocese of Chicago, Illinois, and Omaha, Nebraska; the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, and many many others. It's a very very long list. Right now on your screens you can see the Holy Father. He is greeting the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church, who is also visiting the Holy Father and is on pilgrimage to the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.
So the Holy Father now ready to begin the general audience. He will start with the sign of the cross. Standing next to the Holy Father is the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Cilicia, on a visit to the Vatican, Aram I.
I am pleased to welcome His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Cilicia, together with the distinguished delegates accompanying him. This fraternal visit represents an important opportunity to strengthen the bonds of unity that already exist between us as we approach full communion between our churches.
Your Holiness, in these days when we prepare for Pentecost, I invoke the grace of the Holy Spirit upon your pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul. And I invite all those present to pray fervently to the Lord that your visit and meetings may constitute a further step on the path towards full unity. Let us also pray for peace in Lebanon and the Middle East, once again torn apart by violence and war. Your Holiness, I wish to express my particular gratitude for your constant personal commitment to ecumenism, especially to the international theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. Welcome, Your Holiness, dear bishops, and dear friends. Together, let us invoke the intercession of St. Gregory the Illuminator, St. Gregory of Narek, St. Nerses the Gracious, and above all the Virgin Mother of God, that they may enlighten our path towards the fullness of that unity we all desire.
There's a very warm welcome to the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Cilicia on a visit to the Vatican. And now we have the readings, the proclamation of the gospel today, which will be followed by the various languages and then the catechesis.
A reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians. God has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, that he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. The word of the Lord.
Now we prepare to listen to the catechesis of the Holy Father.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome. Today we begin a new series of catecheses on the first document issued by the Second Vatican Council, the constitution on the sacred liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. In drafting this constitution, the council fathers sought not only to undertake a reform of the rites, but to lead the Church to contemplate and deepen that living bond which constitutes and unites her to the mystery of Christ. Indeed, the liturgy touches the very heart of this mystery. It is at once the space, the time, and the context in which the Church receives her very life from Christ. For in the liturgy, the work of our redemption is accomplished, which makes us a chosen lineage, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people whom God has acquired for himself, as manifested by the threefold renewal — biblical, patristic, and liturgical — that the Church underwent through the course of the 20th century. The mystery in question does not designate an obscure reality, but God's salvific plan hidden from all for all eternity and revealed in Christ, according to St. Paul's affirmation. Here then is the Christian mystery, the Paschal event, that is to say, the passion, death, resurrection, and glorification of Christ, which is made sacramentally present to us precisely by the liturgy. So that every time we take part in the assembly gathered in his name, we are immersed in this mystery. Christ himself is the inner source of the mystery of the Church, the holy people of God born from his side pierced on the cross. In the holy liturgy, through the power of the Holy Spirit, he continues to act. He sanctifies and unites the Church, his bride, to his offering to the Father. He exercises his utterly unique priesthood. He who is present in the proclaimed word, in the sacraments, in the ministers who celebrate, in the gathered community, and in the highest degree in the Eucharist. Thus, according to St. Augustine, in celebrating the Eucharist the Church receives the body of the Lord and becomes what she receives. She becomes the body of Christ, a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. This is the work of our redemption, which conforms us to Christ and builds us up in communion. In the holy liturgy, this communion is achieved through rites and prayers. The rituality of the Church expresses our faith in accordance with the familiar saying lex orandi, lex credendi, and at the same time shapes ecclesial identity. The proclaimed word, the celebration of the sacrament, the gestures, the silences, the space — all these represent and give form to the people gathered by the Father, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Every celebration becomes thus a true epiphany of the Church in prayer. As St. John Paul II recalled, if the liturgy is at the service of the mystery of Christ, one understands why it has been defined as the summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed. It is the font from which all her powers flow. It is true that the action of the Church is not limited to the liturgy alone. However, all activity — preaching, service to the poor, and the accompaniment of human realities — converges towards this summit. Conversely, the liturgy sustains the faithful by immersing them ever anew in the Pasch of the Lord, and thus through the proclamation of the word, the celebration of the sacraments, and the communal prayer, they are refreshed, encouraged, and renewed in their commitment to faith and in their mission. In other words, the participation of the faithful in the liturgical action is at once internal and external. This also means that it is called to unfold in a tangible way throughout daily life, in an ethical and spiritual dynamic, so that the liturgy celebrated is translated into life and demands a faithful existence capable of making concrete that which has been experienced in the celebration. It is in this way that our life becomes a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, fulfilling our spiritual worship. In this way, the liturgy daily builds up those who are within into a holy temple of the Lord and forms an open community welcoming all. Indeed, it is inhabited by the Holy Spirit. It introduces us into the life of Christ. It makes us one body, and in all dimensions it represents a sign of the unity of the entire human race in Christ. As Pope Francis said, the world still does not know it, but everyone is invited to the supper of the wedding of the Lamb. Dear friends, let us allow ourselves to be shaped inwardly by the rites, symbols, gestures, and above all the living presence of Christ in the liturgy, which we will have the opportunity to explore in the coming catecheses.
There we have it, the Holy Father's catechesis for today, speaking about the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, which reformed the way we worship. And now we listen to the summaries of the catechesis in the various languages.
I warmly greet the French-speaking pilgrims from Sagone, Corsica, and France, especially the students from the various schools. Dear friends, let us allow ourselves to be transformed inwardly during the liturgy through the rites, symbols, gestures, silences, and above all through the living presence of Christ. I bless you all from my heart.
