Jesus offers us true and eternal love, Pope tells pilgrims
May 10, 2026
Pope Leo XIV said today that Christ is the “measure of true love: the love that is faithful forever, pure and unconditional.”
Reflecting on the Gospel reading of the Sixth Sunday of Easter (John 14:15-21), Pope Leo told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his midday Regina Caeli address that Christ’s teaching “frees us from the misconception that we are loved because we keep the commandments, as if our righteousness were a prerequisite for God’s love” (video).
“On the contrary, God’s love is the basis for our righteousness,” the Pope said. “We truly keep the commandments according to God’s will when we recognize his love for us, just as Christ revealed it to the world.”
“Because God loved us first, we too can love, and when we truly love God, we truly love one another,” Pope Leo continued. “It is like life itself: just as only those who have received life can live, so too, only those who have been loved can love. The Lord’s commandments are therefore a way of life that heal us from false loves.”
The Pope added:
It is precisely because he loves us that the Lord does not leave us alone in life’s trials; he promises us the Paraclete, that is, the Advocate, the “Spirit of truth” (Jn 14:17) ... We can therefore bear witness to God, who is love, always and everywhere. Love is not an idea of the human mind, but the reality of divine life, through which all things were created out of nothing and redeemed from death.
By offering us true and eternal love, Jesus shares with us his identity as the beloved Son: “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (v. 20). This all-encompassing communion of life refutes the Accuser—the Paraclete’s adversary, the spirit opposed to our defender. In fact, while the Holy Spirit is the power of truth, the Accuser is the “father of lies” (Jn 8:44), who seeks to set humanity against God and people against one another: the very opposite of what Jesus does by saving us from evil and uniting us as a people of brothers and sisters in the Church.
“Dear friends, filled with gratitude for this gift, let us entrust ourselves to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Divine Love,” the Pontiff concluded.
Pope Leo then recited, in Latin, the Regina Caeli, the Minor Doxology (three times), and the prayer for the faithful departed, before imparting his blessing.
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