Pope Leo XIV continued his series of general audiences on the theme “Jesus Christ Our Hope” in Saint Peter’s Square Nov. 19 by reflecting on the relationship between the Resurrection and integral ecology.
The Pope began his audience by considering a detail from Saint John’s Gospel: When Christ appeared to Saint Mary Magdalene near the empty tomb, Pope Leo explained, she did not recognize Him, instead thinking He was the gardener.
“Dear brothers and sisters, Mary Magdalene was not entirely mistaken then, believing she had encountered the gardener!” the Pope said. “Indeed, she had to hear her own name again and understand her task from the new Man, the one who in another text of John says: ‘Behold, I make all things new.’”
The Pontiff said that “the peace of the Sabbath and the beauty of a garden” are both the end and the fulfillment of the battle between darkness and light that Christ fought. Referring to Genesis, he observed that cultivating the garden of Eden was the “original task” that Christ fulfilled.
Pope Leo connected the metaphor of gardening with contemplation, which he said is an “extreme need,” echoing the late Pope Francis.
“If he is not the custodian of the garden, the human being becomes its destroyer,” Pope Leo said. “Christian hope therefore responds to the challenges to which all humanity is exposed today by dwelling in the garden where the Crucified One was laid as a seed, to rise again and bear much fruit.”
The Holy Father then reiterated Pope Francis’ call for an integral ecology.
“Paradise is not lost, but found again,” he said. “In this way, the death and resurrection of Jesus are the foundation of a spirituality of integral ecology, outside of which the words of faith have no hold on reality and the words of science remain outside the heart.”
Pope Leo then spoke of the need for “ecological conversion,” which he said is inseparable from broader Christian conversion.The Holy Father closed the catechesis with a prayer that the Holy Spirit would help the faithful to listen to the voiceless and that they might then be able to see the garden where man finds fulfillment, Heaven, which is reached only by fulfilling the task God sets before man.
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