His Holiness Pope Leo XIV’s first General Audience: Love does not calculate

His Holiness Pope Leo XIV holds his first Wednesday General Audience and reflects on Jesus' parable of the sower, stressing that God “does not wait for us to become the best soil.”

By Kielce Gussie

In his first General Audience as Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV continued with Pope Francis' Jubilee series on the theme of “Jesus Christ, Our Hope.”

The new Pope carried on with his predecessor's reflection on the parables of Jesus, which Pope Leo said “help us to rediscover hope, because they show us how God acts in history.”

A unique parable

Pope Leo focused on the parable of the sower—“a rather unique parable, as it serves as a kind of introduction to all the others.” He pointed out how this story reveals how Jesus communicates, and it can give us guidance on how to proclaim the Gospel today.

While parables are taken from everyday life, their goal is to convey something more profound. They encourage us all to “raise questions within us; they invite us not to stop at appearances.”

Reflecting on the story, the Pope urged everyone to ask themselves two questions: Where am I in this story? What does this image say to my life?

A sower goes out to sow

In this parable of the sower, Pope Leo XIV explained that we can see God’s power and the impact it has on us.

“Every word of the Gospel is like a seed sown in the soil of our lives,” he shared, highlighting that the soil is not only our heart, “but also the world, the community, the Church.” There is no aspect of life that remains untouched by the Gospel…

This news was originally published on the Vatican News Website, click here to read more.