“Christians are called to be instruments of peace, love and reconciliation, so that true peace may prevail among all peoples”. Pope Leo XIV said this when greeting the Arabic-speaking faithful, particularly those from the Middle East, at the end of today’s audience. In his catechesis, delivered in a St Peter’s Square once again filled with the faithful, the Pope continued his reflection on the second chapter of Lumen Gentium, dedicated to the Church as the People of God.
“We all enter the Church as lay people”,
he began, borrowing the words of Pope Francis: “The first sacrament, which seals our identity forever, and of which we should always be proud, is Baptism”. The common priesthood of the faithful, Pope Leo XIV recalled, is given with Baptism, which enables us to worship God in spirit and truth and to “confess before men the faith which” we “have received from God through the Church”. Moreover, through the sacrament of Confirmation, all the baptised “are more perfectly bound to the Church” and “the Holy Spirit endows them with special strength so that they are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith, both by word and by deed, as true witnesses of Christ. This consecration is at the root of the common mission that unites the ordained ministries and the lay faithful”.
“Everyone forms the faithful Holy People of God”,
as stated in Lumen Gentium. The exercise of the royal priesthood “takes place in many ways, all aimed at our sanctification, first and foremost through participation in the offering of the Eucharist”: “through prayer, asceticism and active charity, we thus bear witness to a life renewed by God’s grace”. As the Council summarises, “it is through the sacraments and the exercise of the virtues that the sacred nature and organic structure of the priestly community is brought into operation”; the Council Fathers also teach that “the holy People of God also participate in the prophetic mission of Christ”.
“The Church, as the communion of the faithful – which naturally includes the pastors – cannot err in matters of faith”,
the Pope affirmed, reflecting on the meaning of the “sensus fidei” and the infallibility of the Pontiff: “the organ through which this truth is preserved, founded on the anointing of the Holy Spirit, is the supernatural sense of faith of the entire People of God, which is manifested in the consensus of the faithful”. The sensus fidei, Pope Leo XIV explained, “is like a faculty of the whole Church, by which she, in her faith, recognises the revelation handed down, distinguishing between true and false in matters of faith, and at the same time penetrates it more deeply and applies it more fully in life”. The sense of faith, therefore, “belongs to individual believers not in their own right, but as members of the People of God as a whole”: Lumen Gentium “focuses on this latter aspect, and places it in relation to the infallibility of the Church, to which that of the Roman Pontiff is inherent and by which it is served”. “The entire body of the faithful”, the Pope assured, “cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples’ supernatural discernment in matters of faith when from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals”.
“Every baptised person is an active agent of evangelization, called to bear consistent witness to Christ in accordance with the prophetic gift which the Lord bestows upon His whole Church”,
Pope Leo remarked. The Holy Spirit, who comes to us from the Risen Jesus, distributes “special graces among the faithful of every rank. By these gifts, He makes them fit and ready to undertake various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church”, the conciliar document states. “A particular demonstration of this charismatic vitality is offered by consecrated life, which continually germinates and flourishes through the work of grace”, the Pope observed. According to him, “ecclesial associations, too, are a shining example of the variety and fruitfulness of spiritual fruits for the edification of the People of God”. “Let us awaken within ourselves an awareness and gratitude for having received the gift of belonging to the People of God, and also the responsibility that this entails”, was his final exhortation.
