Place your hopes, your ideas, and your lives upon the altar, Pope preaches to cardinals
January 09, 2026
Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the beginning of the second and final day of the extraordinary consistory of cardinals (booklet, video).
Recalling that the verb related to the word consistory means “to stand still,” Pope Leo said that “all of us have ‘paused’ in order to be here.”
“We have set aside our activities for a time, and even cancelled important commitments, so as to discern together what the Lord is asking of us for the good of his people,” he preached at the Mass, celebrated yesterday morning at 7:30. “This itself is already a highly significant and prophetic gesture, particularly in the context of the frenetic society in which we live. It reminds us of the importance, in every aspect of life, of stopping to pray, listen and reflect.”
“It is important that during this Eucharist, we place each of our hopes and ideas upon the altar,” he continued. “Together with the gift of our lives, we offer them to the Father in union with the Sacrifice of Christ, so that we may receive them back purified, enlightened, united and transformed by grace into one Bread. Indeed, only in this way will we truly know how to listen to his voice, and to welcome it through the gift that we are to one another—which is the very reason we have gathered.”
Recalling that “God’s love, of which we are disciples and apostles, is a ‘Trinitarian’ and ‘relational’ love,” Pope Leo added:
Our “pausing,” then, is first and foremost a profound act of love for God, for the Church and for the men and women of the whole world. Through this, we allow ourselves to be formed by the Spirit: primarily in prayer and silence, but also by facing one another and listening to one another. In our sharing, we become a voice for all those whom the Lord has entrusted to our pastoral care in many different parts of the world. We must live this act with humble and generous hearts, aware that it is by grace that we are here.
After citing a sermon by Pope St. Leo I, the current Pope Leo called upon the cardinals to work with “the spirit of those who desire that every member of the Mystical Body of Christ will cooperate in an orderly way for the good of all.”
The Pontiff then spoke of a “humanity hungry for goodness and peace,” in “a world where satisfaction and hunger, abundance and suffering, and the struggle for survival together with a desperate existential emptiness continue to divide and wound individuals, communities and nations.”
He concluded:
Beloved brothers, what you offer to the Church through your service, at every level, is something profound and very personal, unique to each of you and precious to all. The responsibility you share with the Successor of Peter is indeed weighty and demanding.
For this reason, I offer you my heartfelt thanks, and I wish to conclude by entrusting our work and our mission to the Lord with the words of Saint Augustine: “You give us many things when we pray, and whatever good we received before we prayed for it, we have received from you. We have also received from you the grace that later we came to realize this... Remember, Lord ‘that we are but dust.’ You have made man of the dust” (Confessions, 10, xxxi, 45). Therefore, we say to you: “Grant what you command, and command what you will” (ibid.).
Pope Leo XIV celebrated the Mass in Italian, with Latin chants.
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