This is the seventeenth in a new series of posts sharing Pope Leo XIV’s words each Wednesday in his Weekly Audience, a time when he teaches, encourages, and shapes the mission of the Church around the world. Check back here each Wednesday to get to know Pope Leo!
“Death is not opposed to life, but rather a part of it.”
In this week’s Wednesday audience, Pope Leo XIV contemplates the mystery of death in the light of the Risen Christ.
In today’s culture, death seems to be a taboo, a topic to be kept at a distance, spoken of in hushed tones, avoided altogether, and feared.
But the Resurrection of Christ gives us hope: that death is not opposed to life, but rather a constitutive part of it. In the light of the Resurrection, death is not the end, but a passage—toward eternity, toward the fullness of life, toward our eternal home.
Thanks to the Risen One, with St. Francis, we can call death our “sister.” “Awaiting it with the sure hope of the Resurrection preserves us from the fear of disappearing forever and prepares us for the joy of life without end.”
