Pope Leo prays to Tomb of St Paul

By Joseph Tulloch

Tuesday afternoon, Pope Leo XIV visited the Basilica of St Paul outside the walls, the Roman church has traditionally thought of holding the remains of the saint.

After a moment of prayer in front of the tomb of St Paul, the Pope chaired a brief prayer service.

In his homily, Pope Leo reflected in reading the letter from St Paul to the Romans, which he said, contains three major themes – thanks, faith and justification – which can help clarify the ministry of the shovel to which it was called.

Grace

The Pope started by discussing the first of these subjects, “grace” – or the help of God.

In his letter to the Romans, Pope Leo said, Paul recognizes that he met Christ only because Christ contacted him first – his meeting and his subsequent ministry were “the fruit of the previous love of God, who called him to a new life when he was still far from the Gospel”.

St Augustine said something similar, noted Pope Leo, when he asked “How can we choose, unless we were chosen for the first time?” We cannot like it, unless someone wins us first ”.

We cannot lead a good life without the help of God, said the Pope, and this reality is “at the origin of each vocation”.

Faith

The pope then turned to consider the role of faith in the story of Saint-Paul of his vocation.

When God appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, Pope Leo said: “He did not take away his freedom”, but rather gave him “the opportunity to make a decision”.

“Salvation does not occur by magic,” said the Pope, “but by a mysterious interaction of grace And faithOf the warning love of God and our confidence and our free acceptance ”.

Justification

The last aspect of Paul’s call that Pope Leo considered was that of “justification”, or the process of increasing holiness. The acts of the apostles describe how, after his vision of Jesus, Paul stopped persecuting Christians and began to work alongside them.

The pope urged his listeners to “compete” by showing this kind of love, which led St Paul to give himself so entirely to the others that he was ultimately martyred.

Love as the basis of each mission

Pope Leo closed his homily with a quote from Pope Benedict XVI: “God loves us. It is the great truth of our life; This is what makes everything else significant ”.

This insight, said Pope Leo, is “the basis of each mission”, including “my own mission as a successor of Peter and heir to the apostolic zeal of Paul”.

“May the Lord give me the grace to respond faithfully to his call,” he concluded.