More than one million pilgrims walked this weekend to Luján

Once again, and under the motto “Mother, give us love to walk with hope”, more than one million Argentines walked this weekend to the National Sanctuary of Our Lady of Luján, in the 51.ª Youth pilgrimage.

The walk, which had as its starting point the Sanctuary of San Cayetano, officially began on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. with the departure of the pilgrim image of the Virgin, under a challenging sun and temperatures that in the afternoon brushed the 30 degrees Celsius.

Bishops and priests waited for pilgrims in different parts of the road to teach the blessing, while musical groups accompanied with songs and joy the passage of the hundreds of thousands of faithful who, throughout the day, filled the route to Luján with faith.

During the night the rains began, first intermittent and then persistent, who forced the faithful to protect themselves under ponchos, pilots and nylon bags. From the Basilica they could not specify the exact number of pilgrims, although every year it exceeds one million people and, on this occasion, “all expectations were exceeded,” acknowledged one of the deacons of the sanctuary.

Already in Luján, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Mons. García Cuerva, who also completed the approximately 60 kilometers of the pilgrimage, presided over the central mass of Sunday at 7:00 hours.

There, he directed his homily To the Virgin Mary, mother of the Argentines: “Mother … once again, and as every year, here are your children. Your children who come with their feet tired, but with the soul full of emotion because you receive us with that love that you only know how to give us,” he said.

The prelate acknowledged: “We need your mother’s love. That love that cures, that love that does not judge, that love that raises us and that encourages us in hope.”

“We arrive here with our personal crosses, with pain and sorrows, loading failures and bronchs. That is why we need your gaze: a tender look that transmits so much, a sweet look that uncovers our soul, a look full of compassion and care,” he added.

Maria’s gaze, he said, “is a caress that comforts our lives.” With such a mother, the archbishop said, “despite so many heavy crosses that our people load, we continue walking. We do not loosen and commit ourselves not to abandon the dreams of building a more fair and more fraternal country.”

In that sense, he encouraged unity, to “look at us with mercy”, and be “close to those who are having a bad time.”

By pilgrimage so many kilometers, “their feet hurt, life hurts”, but “we continue walking” because Maria “embodies hope, a hope that is not born in the noise, but in the silence of a wait inhabited by love,” he said, citing Pope Leo XIV.

Mons. García Cuerva called to walk with hope no longer let himself be overcome by pessimism: not to become “calamities prophets that only make diagnoses of what we already know is wrong”, nor let himself win “for discouragement and sadness”, but to move forward “although at times of selfishness, violence and injustice seem to win.”

The Archbishop warned that “there are many brothers in our country who no longer have the strength to continue, that they do not find meaning to the path of their lives, which have stopped their march. They are too weighed in poverty, the consequences of drug trafficking, diseases, loneliness. For them we also pilgrimage.” He added: “We bring them in the backpack of the soul, because we do not want to be an indifferent people in the face of so much pain, or let us win for the impotence of the ‘you cannot'”.

“We walk for those who do not give more. We walk through our grandparents. We walk through our teenagers and young people pierced by drugs and alcohol. We walked through those who lost a dearly a dear victim of violence. We walk through the poorest. We walk through the children. We walk through families. We walk through those who look for work. We walk through our dreams and ideals. We walk through our homeland.

Finally, he expressed a message of hope: “Here, together with our mother, we commit ourselves to move on, because everything is not lost. We can stop our feet to rest, but we will not stop the heart.” And he concluded: “These hearts will return to their homes mobilized by the love of a mother who never leaves us alone, and who encourages us to walk with hope, not to claud to travel together paths of fraternity, dialogue and encounter between Argentines.”