ACI Prensa Staff, 21 January, 2026 / 4:05 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Leo XIV said Wednesday that the grandeur of the Incarnation cannot be reduced to viewing Jesus as a mere messenger of “intellectual truths,” but must be received as God’s full embrace of the human condition — including Christ’s “true and integral humanity.”
Speaking at his general audience on Jan. 21 in the Paul VI Hall, the pope said that divine revelation is not primarily a set of abstract ideas but a living encounter in which God gives himself to humanity and invites a relationship of communion.
“We have seen that God reveals himself in a dialogue of covenant,” the pope said, “a relational knowledge, which not only communicates ideas, but shares a history and calls for communion in reciprocity.”
Continuing a catechesis cycle on Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Leo XIV emphasized that believers come to know God by entering into Jesus’ own relationship with the Father through the action of the Holy Spirit.
Wednesday's talk was part of a longer series on the documents of Vatican II which the pope began earlier this month.
