Love is at the center of our relationship with God, Pope tells pilgrims

October 26, 2026

Pope Leo XIV told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday Angelus address (video) that Christ “places love at the very center of our relationship with God.”

“Indeed, it is not enough to know that God exists, that he is the only God, or that he is the Almighty,” Pope Leo said on October 25, as he reflected on Matthew 22:34-40, the Gospel reading of the day. “The Lord seeks a personal relationship with us: the one true God wants to become our God.”

“Thanks to our close relationship with God, we are able to look at ourselves and our neighbors through the eyes of Christ, from his perspective,” the Pope continued. “In this way, selfishness is overcome and even love for oneself becomes charity: our existence turns toward the other and becomes a gift for those around us.”

Pope Leo concluded:

Dear friends, we cannot truly love God unless this love overflows into love for our brothers and sisters. And we cannot truly love our neighbor except as children of the same Father who loved us first in his Son, Jesus.

Let us ask the Lord for the grace of a new heart, capable of embracing and living out the greatest of all commandments. May the Blessed Virgin Mary intercede for us, in whose Immaculate Heart there is nothing but love.

The Pontiff then recited, in Latin, the Angelus, the Minor Doxology (three times), and the prayer for the faithful departed, before imparting his blessing.

 

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Further information:

• Angelus (Dicastery for Communication - Vatican Media, 10/25/26)
• Pope at Angelus: Love for God must overflow into love for others (Vatican News, 10/25/26)