[Message from our Executive Director, Daniel Wasserman-Soler]
Dear friends,
Habemus papam! In his first speech as the successor of St. Peter, Pope Leo XIV exhorted his listeners “to be a missionary Church.” In doing so, he echoed the ancient words of one of his predecessors, Pope St. Leo the Great (d. 461):
For all, regenerated in Christ, are made kings by the sign of the cross; they are consecrated priests by the oil of the Holy Spirit, so that beyond the special service of our ministry as priests, all spiritual and mature Christians know that they are a royal race and are sharers in the office of the priesthood. For what is more king-like than to find yourself ruler over your body after having surrendered your soul to God? And what is more priestly than to promise the Lord a pure conscience and to offer him in love unblemished victims on the altar of one’s heart?
One of the 37 doctors, or “great teachers” of the Catholic Church, St. Leo the Great calls attention to the dignity of Christians — both the clergy and the laity. He teaches that “all spiritual and mature Christians” have a priestly duty. Specifically, he points to prayer, for Christians “are made kings by the sign of the cross.” He also challenges his reader to make a priestly offering to God, to surrender one’s soul to the Lord. You can read more from St. Leo’s ancient sermon here.
Before signing off, I thought you might enjoy the picture below of Pope Leo XIV (then Fr. Robert Prevost), at a Lumen Christi lecture given by Prof. Anna Bonta Moreland at the University of Chicago in October 2014, on “Interpreting Pope Francis: Evangelization and the Family.“
Yours in Christ,
Daniel Wasserman-Soler
Executive Director
Lumen Christi Institute