Christ’s love is stronger than hatred, pope says at audience

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Jesus’ love and forgiveness do not deny the truth of pain and betrayal, but they do prevent evil from having the last word, Pope Leo XIV said.

“To forgive does not mean to deny evil, but to prevent it from generating further evil,” the pope said Aug. 20 at his weekly general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall.

“It is not to say that nothing has happened, but to do everything possible to ensure that resentment does not determine the future,” he said.

Continuing his series of talks about Jesus’ final days, the pope looked specifically at “one of the most striking and luminous gestures in the Gospel,” when Jesus offers a morsel of bread to Judas during the Last Supper, knowing full well that his disciple is about to betray him.

“It is not only a gesture of sharing: it is much more; it is love’s last attempt not to give up,” Pope Leo said.

“The key to understanding Christ’s heart,” he said, is to realize that his love “does not cease in the face of rejection, disappointment, even ingratitude.”

“His love is stronger than hatred,” he said.

The pope said Jesus recognizes that “his love must pass through the most painful wound, that of betrayal. And instead of withdrawing, accusing, defending himself, he continues to love: he washes the feet, dips the bread and offers it” to all his disciples, including Judas.

Jesus is not ignoring what is happening, he said. Rather, he has understood “that the freedom of the other, even when it is lost in evil, can still be reached by the light of a meek gesture, because he knows that true forgiveness does not await repentance, but offers itself first, as a free gift, even before it is accepted.”

Judas accepts the morsel of bread, but does not understand its meaning, and “Satan entered him,” the pope said. “That morsel is our salvation, because it tells us that God does everything — absolutely everything — to reach us, even in the hour when we reject him.”

“Jesus, with the simple gesture of offering bread, shows that every betrayal can become an opportunity for salvation if it is chosen as a space for a greater love,” he said. “It does not give in to evil, but conquers it with good, preventing it from extinguishing what is truest in us: the capacity to love.”

“Jesus’ love does not deny the truth of pain, but it does not allow evil to have the last word,” he said. “This is the mystery Jesus accomplishes for us, in which we, too, at times, are called to participate.”

“We, too, experience painful and difficult” moments, such as when there is disappointment or when “someone has hurt or betrayed us,” the pope said. “The temptation is to close ourselves up, to protect ourselves, to return the blow.”

“But the Lord shows us the hope that another way always exists,” he said, and that the faithful can “respond with the silence of trust. And that we can move forward with dignity, without renouncing love.”

“Let us ask today for the grace to be able to forgive,” he said. “As Jesus teaches us, to love means to leave the other free — even to betray — without ever ceasing to believe that even that freedom, wounded and lost, can be snatched from the deception of darkness and returned to the light of goodness.”

“Even if the other does not accept it, even if it seems to be in vain, forgiveness frees those who give it: it dispels resentment, it restores peace, it returns us to ourselves,” he said.

Pope Leo spent nearly an hour and a half greeting visitors and pilgrims in the audience hall, including special guests, sports teams, newlyweds and the infirm. He greeted several families with small children, holding their newborns and posing for a family photo.

He then headed to St. Peter’s Basilica to greet those who could not fit in the large audience hall and blessed people who were waiting in the parking area outside the hall. Because of the high temperatures outside, the general audience was being held in two parts — in the hall and in the basilica — so people would not have to be under the hot sun.

The pope greeted the faithful in the basilica in English, Spanish and Italian and reminded them of the theme of forgiveness in his main catechesis.

“Let us all learn to pardon,” he said in English. “Because to pardon one another is to build a bridge of peace. And we must pray for peace, which is so necessary in our world today, a peace which only Jesus Christ can give us.”

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