In a Mass commemorating all the faithful departed, Pope Leo XIV on Sunday said the memory of those who have gone before us carries hope for eternal life and is a reminder that Jesus has overcome death with love.

Speaking during the Mass at Rome’s Campo Verano cemetery on Nov. 2 – All Souls Day – the pope said, “Love conquers death. In love, God will gather us together with our loved ones.”

Pope Leo in his homily Sunday said the day marked a special remembrance of the deceased and was a time to recall loved ones who had died with “particular affection.”

“Although they left us on the day when they died, we continue to carry them with us in our hearts, and their memory remains always alive within us amid our daily lives,” he said, noting that there are often daily reminders of loved ones that keep their memory alive.

The commemoration of those who have died, he said, is not simply an act of remembrance but a moment to deepen Christian faith, which holds at its core Jesus’s incarnation and resurrection from the dead.

“If we journey together in charity,” Leo said, “our very lives become a prayer rising up to God, uniting us with the departed, drawing us closer to them as we await to meet them again in the joy of eternal life.”

Campo Verano is one of Rome’s largest cemeteries, covering some 83 hectares of land. It is divided into Catholic, Jewish and Protestant sections.

It marked Leo’s first public Mass at a cemetery since his election. Pope Francis celebrated his first All Saints Day Mass at the Campo Verano on Nov. 1, 2013, choosing different Roman cemeteries throughout his papacy for the Nov. 2 feast commemorating All Souls.

Francis’s visit to the Campo Verano in 2013 was the first time a pope had visited the cemetery for All Saints Day. He celebrated Mass for All Souls Day at the Campo Verano in 2014 and 2015, before choosing different cemeteries in subsequent years, including his 2016 celebration of All Souls Day Mass at the American military cemetery in Nettuno.

Also in his homily, Leo said the vision of faith “helps us to experience our memories as more than just a recollection of the past but also, and above all, as hope for the future.”

“It is not so much about looking back, but instead looking forward towards the goal of our journey, towards the safe harbor that God has promised us, towards the unending feast that awaits us,” the pope said.

He evoked the scriptural image of heaven as a banquet prepared by God, saying the hope of this promise gives life to the remembrance and prayer for the deceased.

“This is not an illusion for soothing the pain of our separation from loved ones, nor is it mere human optimism,” Leo said, saying it is rather “the hope founded on the Resurrection of Jesus who has conquered death and opened for us the path to the fullness of life.”

God’s love is what guides humanity through their earthly journey, he said, saying life without this love would be meaningless and directionless. God, however, gives humankind the assurance that “we are awaited, loved and saved.”

The banquet of heaven, as humanity’s final destination, “will be an encounter of love,” the pope said.

“It was out of love that God created us, through the love of his Son that he saves us from death, and in the joy of that same love, he desires that we live forever with him and with our loved ones,” he said.

For this reason, whenever charity is practiced and love shown to others, especially the weak and those most in need, it is a step toward eternal life, allowing faithful to “journey towards our goal, and even now anticipate it through an unbreakable bond with those who have gone before us.”

Pope Leo closed his homily acknowledging the pain experienced by the death of a loved one and the void that their absence leaves.

However, “even as our sorrow for those no longer among us remains etched in our hearts, let us entrust ourselves to the hope that does not disappoint,” he said, and urged faithful to keep their focus on God and his promise of eternal life.

“He will destroy death forever. Indeed, he has already conquered it, opening for us the way to eternal life by passing through the valley of death during his Paschal mystery. Thus, united to him, we too may enter and pass through the valley of death,” he said.

Leo prayed that going forward, this promise would “sustain us, dry our tears, and raise our gaze upwards toward the hope for the future that never fades.”

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