Pope: ‘God’s truth’ is not revealed by taking ‘something away from the human’
The catechesis in today’s audience in the Paul VI Hall focused on the Second Vatican Council and Dei Verbum. The knowledge about God is "relational", realised in Jesus the "mediator," with his "integral humanity." Salvation also comes from the "real body" of Jesus. The pontiff also focused on building strong bonds of unity during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Pope Leo XIV held his Wednesday general audience this morning, in the Paul VI Hall, before thousands of faithful. He continued the catechesis on the documents of the Second Vatican Council that began with the new year, as well as his reflection on the Constitution Dei Verbum, which began last week.
The knowledge with God is “relational”, he said. The divine “revelation takes place in a historical and personal encounter in which God himself gives himself to us, making himself present, and we discover that we are known in our deepest truth”.
This is what happened to Jesus Christ as well. “The Document states: ‘The deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation’,” Leo explained.
“Jesus reveals the Father to us by involving us in his own relationship with Him.” Thus, we “reach full knowledge of God [. . .] by entering into the Son’s relationship with his Father”.
“Thanks to Jesus we know God as we are known by Him,” Leo noted. God, in fact, communicated himself to humanity “in Christ,” revealing the “true identity” as children of men and women, “created in the image of the Word.”
“Jesus Christ is the place where we recognize the truth of God the Father, while we discover ourselves known by Him as sons in the Son”.
What is more, “Jesus Christ reveals the Father with his own humanity. Precisely because he is the Word incarnate that dwells among men, Jesus reveals God to us with his own true and integral humanity,” the pontiff said.
To know God in Christ, it is necessary to embrace "his integral humanity”, which speaks of the "truth of the Father”, with the certainty that “God’s truth is not fully revealed where it takes something away from the human”.
It is not only Jesus's death and resurrection that save us, but also "his very person.” Thus, "the Lord who becomes incarnate, is born, heals, teaches, suffers, dies, rises again, and remains among us," the pope said.
Jesus is not merely a "channel of transmission of intellectual truths.” Indeed, “If Jesus has a real body, the communication of the truth of God is realized in that body, with its own way of perceiving and feeling reality, with its own way of inhabiting and passing through the world,” Leo said.
Addressing Italian-speaking faithful, Leo XIV mentioned the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, currently underway from 18 to 25 January 2026, centred on the theme “There is one body, one spirit, just as God has called you to the one hope to which you are called” (Ephesians 4:4).
Hence, “We ask the Lord to bestow the gift of his Spirit on all the Churches throughout the world so that, through it, Christians may banish division and build strong bonds of unity,” he said.
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