Pope’s Message
Today’s Gospel begins with a great question posed to Jesus: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Those words express a constant desire in our life: our yearning for salvation, for an existence free from failure, evil and death.
This hope of the human heart is described as something to be “inherited”, not something to be gained by force, begged for, or negotiated. Eternal life, which God alone can give, is bestowed on us as an inheritance, as parents do with their children.
That is why Jesus tells us that, in order to receive God’s gift, we must do his will. It is written in the Law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,” and “your neighbour as yourself.” When we do these two things, we respond to the Father’s love. God’s will is the law of life that the Father himself was the first to follow, by loving us unconditionally in his Son, Jesus.
In order to live eternally, we do not need to cheat death, but to serve life, by caring for others in this, our time together. That is the supreme law that is prior to all society’s rules and gives them their meaning.
— Pope Leo XIV, Angelus, 13 July 2025
