The testimony of Santos today is urgent, says Papa Leo XIV from the Vatican in a message to Peru

Pope Leo XIV said that “the testimony of Santos today is urgent” to “build a better future”, in his message to the participants of the Social Week of Peru, which takes place from August 14 to 16 in the capital, Lima.

As noted Vatican Newsthe event is promoted by the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, the Episcopal Commission of Social Action (CEAS), the Bartolomé de las Casas Institute (IBC) and the Conference of Religious and Religious of Peru (CRP).

The motto of the Social Week, which is held at the San Camilo Health Training Center in the district of Cercado de Lima, is Walking together with hope for the common good.

“Entrañas of the Gospel”

In his message, released by the Vatican press office, Pope Leo XIV highlights the importance of responding to the multiple challenges of our time “from the bowels of the Gospel.”

“To do this, today’s testimony is urgentthat is, of people who remain together with the Lord, like the Sarmientos to the vine. Because the saints are not ornaments of a baroque past; They arise from a call from God to build a better future, ”said the pontiff.

In that sense, Pope León stressed that “all social action of the Church must have as a center and finish the announcement of the Gospel of Christ, so that, without neglecting the immediate, we always retain the awareness of the own and last direction of our service.”

“If we do not give to Christ, we will always be giving extremely little,” he warned.

In his message, Pope Leo XIV, who was a bishop of Chiclayo in northern Peru, recalled the testimonies of the great Peruvian saints such as Santa Rosa de Lima (1586-1617), the first Saint of America, mysticism and perhaps the most famous of all Peruvian saints, whose devotion reaches the Philippines; San Martín de Porres (1579-1639), which served as a goalkeeper of a convent and who tells many miraculous stories such as those of his bilocation power; and San Juan Macías (1545 – 1685), Dominican missionary, who is known as the “purgatory thief” because he prayed for the deceased to reach heaven.

In that sense, the Holy Father, who has Peruvian nationality since 2015, recalled some passages from the homily of Pope St. Paul VI in the Canonization of San Juan Macías on September 28, 1975:

The Peruvian saint “was joining everyone in charity, working in favor of a full humanism. And all this, because he loved men, because in them he saw the image of God. How much we would like to remember this to those who work between poor and marginalized today!” Said Pablo VI.

That 1975 day, Pope Montini, cited by Leo XIV, also said that “you do not have to move away from the Gospel, nor must the law of charity break to seek by paths of violence greater justice. There is sufficient virtuality in the virtual gospel to make renewing forces sprout that, transforming from within the men, move them to change in everything that is necessary the structures, to make them more fair, more fair, more fair.

Santo Toribio and the “bread of the word”

On Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo (1538-1606), a patron of the Latin American episcopate, Pope Leo XIV stood out in his message that “in the course of his episcopate he founded a hundred parishes, convened a Pan-American Council, two provincial councils and twelve diocesan sysum Geographical or cultural that my predecessor, Pope Francis, called ‘the peripheries’. ”

“The Peruvian lands saw him not only in the heat of an apostolic action that still amazes us today; but also in the stillness of his serene face and his appearance and devout, which showed well where that force came from: from intense prayer and union with God,” added Leo XIV.

When referring to the social service that the Church gives to the most needy, the Pope also specified that “they are not two loves, but one and himself, the one that moves us to give both the material bread and the bread of the word.”

This love, Pope León continued, “by his own dynamism he will have to wake up hunger from the bread from heaven, that only the Church can give, by mandate and will of Christ, and that no human institution, however intentionally, can replace.”