“Jesus is telling us that God loves us as he loves himself.” Pope Leo XIV reminded us of this in his homily, delivered in St Peter’s Square on the occasion of the Jubilee of Families, Grandparents and the Elderly. Commenting on the Gospel reading on the seventh Sunday of Easter, the Pope reflected on Christ’s prayer for unity, emphasizing that God does not love less, because he loves first, from the very beginning!” God’s love, the Pope added, “is his life, bestowed upon us in Christ, that makes us one, uniting us with one another”, it is on this foundation that every authentic human bond is formed. Jesus’ prayer, said the Holy Father, “is not asking us”to be a nameless and faceless crowd. He wants us to be one: ‘As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us’”: a communion grounded in love, not the sum of individual efforts.
The generative value of relationships
In his homily, the Pope highlighted the close connection between life and relationships: “All of us are alive today thanks to a relationship: a free and freeing relationship of human kindness and mutual care.” He reminded the faithful that none of us choose to be born and that every human being needs the concrete love of someone else in order to live: “As soon as we are born, we need others to live; left to ourselves, we would not have survived.” The Pope then went on to relaunch the notion of the family as a generative space where identity stems from mutual gift rather than possession: “We are here to be ‘one’ as the Lord wants us to be ‘one’ in our families and in those places where we live, work and study.”
Even when human kindness is betrayed, he added, “Jesus continues to pray to the Father for us” and “His prayer acts as a balm for our wounds”, rekindling hope.
Holy spouses, exemplary witnesses of married life
A central passage of the homily focused on the witness of conjugal holiness. The Pope cited the spouses Louis and Zélie Martin, the blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, and the Polish Ulma family, martyred for sheltering Jews during World War II. “It is a sign that makes us think”, he observed. “By pointing to them as exemplary witnesses of married life, the Church tells us that
today’s world needs the marriage covenant in order to know and accept God’s love.”
For the Pope, these families are ‘prophetic signs’ expressed through their fidelity, generosity, and forgiveness, even in the face of adversity: “Marriage is not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful.”
About:
Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, were canonised together in 2015. They lived a life of deep faith, which they instilled in their nine children; five of their daughters became nuns.
Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, who were beatified in 2001, lived in Rome in the 20th century. They raised their children in the Christian faith, encouraged religious vocations, and exemplified a marriage sealed by love in the face of adversity.
The Ulma family were killed by the Nazis in Poland in 1944 for sheltering Jews. They were beatified with their seven children in 2023, including the child carried in the mother’s womb at the time of her death.
Generations united in hope
Addressing the newlyweds directly, the Pope encouraged them to set an example of integrity for their children by ‘acting as you want them to act’. He explained that education is not imposition, but witness, which requires freedom, obedience, balance, and a willingness to listen.
He asked children to cultivate gratitude, saying “‘thank you’ each day for the gift of life and all that comes with it is the first way to honour your father and mother.” He concluded with a message for grandparents and the elderly:
“I recommend that you watch over your loved ones with wisdom and compassion, and with the humility and patience that come with age.”
The Pope went on to describe a vision of family life in which each generation has a responsibility, a contribution to make and a gesture of affection to offer. “In the family,” he said, “faith is handed on together with life, generation after generation. It is shared like food at the family table and like the love in our hearts.”
One in the One Saviour:
Recalling Jesus’ prayer, the Pope explained that it is not only about the present, as it opens up a broader horizon: “One day, we will all be one, embraced by the eternal love of God.” The Pope remembered our “fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters and children who have gone before us into the light of his eternal Pasch”, whose presence we feel here in a mysterious yet real way through the communion of saints. “They too,” he said, “participate in this feast, which is not only for those who are here, but for all the people of God journeying towards full unity.” He concluded: ‘If we love one another in this way, grounded in Christ, we will be a sign of peace for everyone in society and the world.”
The Pope’s words at the Regina Caeli prayer
“May the Virgin Mary bless families everywhere and sustain them in their trials”, Leo XIV said at the end of the Holy Mass celebrating the Jubilee for Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly. “I think especially of those families suffering due to war in the Middle East, Ukraine, and other parts of the world,” he continued, concluding with the words: “May the Mother of God help us to press forward together on the path of peace.”
