welcomes the sinful man and leads him to God. To illuminate this ecclesial condition, Lumen gentium refers to the life of Christ. In fact, those who met Jesus along the roads of Palestine experienced his humanity, his eyes, his hands, the sound of his voice. Those who decided to follow him were moved precisely by the experience of his welcoming gaze, the touch of his blessing hands, his words of liberation and healing. At the same time, however, by following that Man, the disciples opened themselves to an encounter with God. Indeed, Christ’s flesh, his face, his gestures and his words visibly manifest the invisible God. In the light of the reality of Jesus, we can now return to the Church: when we look at her closely, we discover a human dimension made up of real people, who sometimes manifest the beauty of the Gospel and other times struggle and make mistakes like everyone else. However, it is precisely through her members and her limited earthly aspects that Christ’s presence and his saving action are manifested. As Benedict XVI said, there is no opposition between the Gospel and the institution; on the contrary, the structures of the Church serve precisely for the “realization and concretization of the Gospel in our time” (Address to Swiss Bishops, 9 November 2006). An ideal and pure Church, separated from the earth, does not exist; only the one Church of Christ, embodied in history. This is what constitutes the holiness of the Church: the fact that Christ dwells in her and continues to give himself through the smallness and fragility of her members. Contemplating this perennial miracle that takes place in her, we understand ‘God's method’: He makes himself visible through the weakness of creatures, continuing to manifest himself and to act. For this reason, Pope Francis, in Evangelii gaudium, exhorts us all to learn “to remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other (cf. Ex 3:5)” (no. 169). This enables us still today to build up the Church: not only by organizing its visible forms, but by building that spiritual edifice which is the body of Christ, through communion and charity among ourselves. Indeed, charity constantly generates the presence of the Risen One. “If only we could all just let our thoughts dwell on the one thing, charity! It’s the only thing, you see, which both surpasses all things, and without which all things worth nothing, and which draws all things to itself, wherever it may be” (Sermon 354, 6, 6). Summary of the Holy Father's words: Dear brothers and sisters, in our continuing catechesis on the Second Vatican Council, today we consider the mystery of the human and divine dimensions of the Church as presented by the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium. Just as Jesus’ humanity was immediately apparent to those who walked by his side, so too the human dimension of the Church is easy to perceive: it is a community of men and women who, with their gifts and their flaws, seek to proclaim the Gospel within a visible structure. Those who followed Jesus more closely, however, recognized that his humanity — his loving gaze, his merciful gestures and his powerful word — manifested his divinity, which led them to salvation. In a similar way, through the visible and human dimension of the Church, the spirit of Christ and his saving action are present and active in the world. Let us strive to be authentic witnesses of the love of Christ so that all can recognize in us and among us the charity that characterizes true Christians and builds up the Church. Picture of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV from ShopMercy: https://shopmercy.org/pope-leo-xiv-prayer-card.html Quote from His Holiness Pope Leo IIV’s General Audience on March 4, 2026 https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/audiences/2026/documents/20260304-udienza-generale.html
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