The Brotherhood of Rocío de Jaén travels to Rome through the jubilee

More than 50 faithful from the Brotherhood of Rocío de Jaén (Spain) have pilgrimage to Rome to participate in the Jubileo de La Esperanza and celebrate the 150 years of the Company of the Cross, a congregation founded by Santa Ángela de la Cruz.

On Sunday, March 2, the date on which this saint is commemorated, the Jienean pilgrims participated in an emotional Mass in the Spanish National Church of Santiago and Montserrat in Rome. The Eucharist was dedicated to this saint and the devotion of the Virgen del Rocío, one of the most entrenched in Spain.

From the city of southern Spain, the families pilgrimage to the eternal city with the Simpecado Green of Almonte, a banner that represents the Virgen del Rocío, and that was placed during the Mass in the chapel of the Annunciation, next to a portrait Santa Ángela de la Cruz.

After the ceremony, the pilgrims sang the Salve Rociera, the emblematic anthem of the Romaría del Rocío. Fr. Pedro Montesinos, chaplain of the Brotherhood and Pastor of San Juan de la Cruz in Andújar, shared with ACI Press the meaning of this experience: “It has been a reunion with oneself and a strengthening of our faith.”

The priest stressed that the jubilee is an opportunity “to realize that we are children of hope, that is not in our forces or our possibilities, but in the love that God has us.”

“Feeling called by this love, we walk in the midst of the difficulties of life and all the things we can feel in our hearts. If we are children of hope, our goal is not in us, but in the love that God has us and in being with him, ”he said.

For Father Montesinos, this pilgrimage is “a wink that the Virgin makes to each of us to tell us that we are not alone and to encourage ourselves in the path of hope that we are following.”

During their stay in Rome, the pilgrims lamented the absence of Pope Francis, who has been hospitalized for 18 days for bilateral pneumonia.

The pontiff planned to greet the brotherhood, but his state of health prevented him from doing so. Even so, Fr. Montesinos stressed that, even in the disease, Pope Francis remains a testimony of hope: “It is one more breath for hope. He himself tells us: he continues to trust the Lord at this painful moment of his life and his earthly existence. ”

Finally, the priest asked to pray for the Holy Father, so that “God’s strength never lacks at this time and hopefully he has a speedy recovery and can continue granting the Gray that we are here pilgrimage in this holy earth,” he concluded.