Pope Leo XIV celebrated Daytime Prayer with Peru’s bishops, priests, religious men and women, seminarians, synodal teams, and pastoral councils in the magnificent Cathedral Basilica of St John the Apostle and Evangelist in Lima, on Thursday, November 12. 

In the first public liturgy on the final leg of his Apostolic Journey to Latin America, Pope Leo recalled his early missionary labours in Peru, where he was sent “to promote peace through justice, with particular concern for the weakest.”

“I return today,” he said, “to encourage you to continue the work of spreading the Gospel, attentive to people’s lives and needs.”

Fostering belief and reconciliation

Taking up the short reading from the liturgy, from the First Letter of St John, Pope Leo offered a reflection to church leaders on “certain attitudes that are important for being the Church and for building a civilization of love truly grounded on the common good.”

These include looking upon Jesus “as the one foundation on which to build our temple of living stones,” and being open to reconciliation, which is so greatly needed. Peru, he said, needs a Church that sows love, capable of building bridges where others raise walls, capable of listening, healing, and forgiveness; and, at the same time, ready to acknowledge its own infidelities and humbly ask for forgiveness, accepting responsibility for the wounds it has caused both within the community and around it.

Building peace and communion

This, he continued, is the only way that the Church can be a true peacemaker in a world in desperate need of “a peace that is unarmed and disarming.” “If we wish to spread peace,” he said, “we must first safeguard and nourish it before God, within ourselves, and among those dear to us,” and then spread it to others.

Spreading peace will then allow the Church to “become authentic builders of that communion” that she is called to embody. He explained, “the question, then, is how to act and make our being one visible.” He said communion does not mean “complete homogeneity or necessarily immediate consensus,” but rather a space where different voices can blend into harmony.

The missionary nature of the Church

Finally, Pope Leo highlighted the importance of mission, which is an intrinsic part of the Church’s nature. “By its very nature, the Church impels us to proclaim the love of God she has received, and in which she believes.”

“Dear brothers and sisters, let us unite, today and always, in the great symphony of communion whose conductor is Christ,” Pope Leo said in conclusion. “Let us sing of the Father’s love as we advance together, with hearts united and open to grace, and faithful to the commandment we have received, ‘that we should believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another.’'