By Tiziana Campisi and Daniele Piccini
“There is hope, but we still need to work hard, pray hard, and truly seek the way forward, to find peace,” Pope Leo said Tuesday evening, in response to questions from journalists concerning negotiations for an end to the war in Ukraine. Regarding possible talks with certain leaders, he said “someone” hears him °continuously,” adding, “We pray and try to move forward.
The Pope’s remarks came around 9.00 pm as he left the summer residence at Castel Gandolfo to return to the Vatican. About an hour earlier, the Holy Father spent time greeting the many people who had gathered to see him off. It was already dark when he walked through the gate of Villa Barberini and stopped to talk to some jubilant faithful.
Pope Leo also spoke about his stay in in Castel Gandolfo, saying he hopes to return soon. “Being here is a blessing,” he said. “I am very happy with the welcome I have received from the people.”
He recalled his visit earlier in the day “to the shrine of Our Lady, where Pope Saint John Paul II also visited.”
Finally, when asked about his first hundred days as pope, he emphasised that they had been “a blessing from God.” In his final remarks before getting in the car that would take him back to the Vatican, he said, “I receive so much. I believe deeply in the Lord’s grace, and I am very grateful for the welcome I have received. I thank you all.”
The second stay in Castel Gandolfo
Pope Leo returned to Castel Gandolfo on Aug 13 for a second period of rest, after spending just over two weeks there in July. There were four appointments with the faithful during these seven days. On Aug 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Pontiff celebrated Mass in the pontifical parish of St Thomas of Villanova, not far from Villa Barberini. In his homily, he emphasised that Mary’s “yes” “still lives and resists death in the martyrs of our time, in witnesses of faith and justice, of gentleness and peace.” Later, at the Angelus, turning to current world events, he urged people not to resign themselves to “the prevalence of the logic of conflict and of arms”.
The day with the poor and homeless of Albano
Last Sunday, Aug 17, was also a day of encounters. In the morning, the Pontiff presided over Mass at the Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Rotonda in Albano for the poor of the area—including the homeless, and residents of shelters and group homes in the diocese—as well as Caritas workers and beneficiaries of counselling centres. During his homily, he urged them bring into the world “not the fire of weapons or of words that incinerate others,” but rather “the fire of love, which humbles itself and serves, which opposes indifference with care and arrogance with meekness; the fire of goodness, which does not cost as much as weapons, but freely renews the world.”
Welcomed by many people in the streets of the Albano ahead of the Sunday liturgy, Pope Leo also visited an exhibition organised by the diocesan Caritas, entitled “Signs of Hope.”
After Mass, the Holy Father returned to Castel Gandolfo for the weekly Angelus. At the end of the Marian devotion, he invited the faithful to join him in praying “that efforts to bring wars to an end and to promote peace may bear fruit; and that in negotiations, the common good of peoples may always be placed first.”
An eagerly awaited event was the lunch in Borgo Laudato Si’ with a hundred poor, homeless, and needy people assisted by Caritas of Albano. At the beginning of the meal, Pope Leo recalled how important it is to share “that gesture so meaningful for us all, of breaking bread, breaking bread together, the gesture with which Jesus Christ is recognised among his people.”
The visit to the sanctuary of Mentorella
Finally, Tuesday morning, Pope Leo made a private visit to the sanctuary of Our Lady, Mother of Grace of Mentorella, in Guadagnolo, a small village of Capranica Prenestina, in the diocese of Palestrina. The Pope paused for some time in prayer and lit a candle at the foot of the statue of the Virgin Mary, expressing a special plea for peace in the world. He also spent time with the Resurrectionist religious, who are entrusted with the pastoral care of the shrine, and joined them for lunch before returning to Villa Barberini. – Vatican News
