Vatican City: During his Angelus address on the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, Pope Leo XIV offered a profound reflection on the Christian hope in the resurrection and the sacred duty of remembering those who have gone before us. Speaking to thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, the Holy Father meditated on the deep spiritual meaning behind the early November observances All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day which remind the faithful of the eternal link between life, death, and resurrection.

“The resurrection of the crucified Christ,” Pope Leo said, “illuminates the destiny of each of us.” Citing the Gospel of John, he recalled the words of Jesus: “This is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” These words, the Pope explained, reveal the heart of God’s divine plan that no soul should be lost and that every person may find their unique place in eternal life.

Reflecting on the previous day’s Solemnity of All Saints, the Pope described the celebration as a “communion of differences,” where all of humanity’s diversity finds harmony in the love of God. “It is as if God’s own life,” he said, “is extended to all His sons and daughters who desire to share in it.” Every human being, he noted, carries a deep longing to be seen, known, and loved a yearning that finds its fulfillment in eternal life.

Quoting Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe Salvi, Pope Leo reminded the faithful that “eternal life” does not mean an endless succession of time but rather being immersed forever in “an ocean of infinite love” where time itself ceases to matter. “This fullness of life and joy in Christ,” he said, “is what we yearn for with all our hearts.”

Turning his attention to the day’s commemoration of All Souls, Pope Leo emphasized that each act of remembrance carries profound spiritual significance. “Whenever death seems to silence a voice or erase a world,” he said, “we come to understand God’s deep concern that no one should be lost because every person is a world in themselves.”

He called memory both “precious and fragile,” cautioning that without remembering Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, “the vast treasure of everyday life risks being forgotten.” Yet in Christ, he assured, even those whom the world forgets “remain forever in their infinite dignity.”

The Pope reminded believers that since the earliest days of the Church, Christians have remembered the departed during the Eucharist, praying that their loved ones may be included in God’s eternal remembrance. From this act of faith, he said, “springs the hope that no one will perish.”

Pope Leo urged the faithful to visit cemeteries not merely as a ritual but as moments of quiet reflection pauses that break the noise of daily life and allow hearts to remember and to hope. “As we proclaim in the Creed,” he said, “we look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”

In his closing words, the Holy Father invited Christians to view remembrance not as a return to the past but as an act of faith in the future. “Let us remember the future,” he said. “We are not bound by the past or trapped in nostalgia. Nor are we sealed in the present as in a tomb. In Christ, memory becomes hope, and hope opens the way to eternal life.”