Do Christians respond with love, asks Leo XIV on a "feast of holiness"?

- Carol Glatz (Vatican City, CNS).

Canonizing seven new saints - "a great feast of holiness" - on World Mission Sunday, Pope Leo XIV asked whether Christians respond with love when there are cries for help. And he said that God is present wherever the innocent suffer, and his form of justice is forgiveness. 

"God grants justice to all, laying down his life for all," he said in his homily during the canonization Mass in St. Peter's Square on Oct. 19. It is the penultimate Sunday of this month, when the Church prays for missionaries and their efforts in evangelization, education, health care and other ministries.

"In fact, it is this faith that sustains our commitment to justice, precisely because we believe that God saves the world out of love, freeing us from fatalism," he said. "As we listen to the cry of those who are experiencing difficulties, let us ask ourselves: are we witnesses to the love of the Father, as Christ was for all?"

Jesus "is the humble one who calls the proud to conversion, the just one who makes us just," he said.

Seven new saints, including first two from Venezuela

During the second canonization ceremony of his pontificate, Pope Leo declared the sainthood of seven men and women from the 19th to the 21st centuries. Including the first saints of Venezuela: Saint María Rendiles Martínez and Saint José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros.

Maria del Carmen Rendiles was a Venezuelan foundress of the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus, born in Caracas in 1903 and died in 1977. José Gregorio Hernández was born in 1864 and became a member of the Franciscan Third Order. A Venezuelan physician, he was known as "the doctor of the poor" and died in an accident in 1919 while on his way to attend a patient.

Five others canonized

The Pope also canonized five other Blesseds.

They are Ignatius Maloyan, martyred Armenian Catholic Archbishop of Mardin, in present-day Turkey. Born in 1869, he was arrested, tortured and executed in Turkey in 1915. Peter To Rot, martyred lay catechist, husband and father of Papua New Guinea. Born in 1912, he was arrested in 1945 during the Japanese occupation in World War II and killed by lethal injection in prison.

Vincenza Maria Poloni, foundress of the Sisters of Mercy of Verona, Italy; lived from 1802 to 1855. Maria Troncatti, Salesian sister born in Italy in 1883 who became a missionary in Ecuador in 1922. She died in a plane crash in 1969.

And Bartolo Longo, Italian lawyer born in 1841. He was a militant opponent of the Church and was involved in occultism. But he converted, dedicating himself to charity and to the construction of the Pontifical Shrine of the Most Holy Virgin of the Rosary of Pompeii. He died in 1926.

"Faithful friends of Christ," "not heroes or champions."

The Pope called the new saints "faithful friends of Christ" who "are not heroes or champions of some ideal, but authentic men and women" who were "martyrs of their faith, evangelizers, missionaries, charismatic founders and "benefactors of humanity."

Having faith on earth is what "sustains hope in heaven," the Pope said in his homily.

"Pray always" without tiring

In fact, Christ tells his disciples to "pray always" without tiring, he said. "Just as breathing sustains the life of the body, prayer sustains the life of the soul: faith, in fact, expresses itself in prayer, and authentic prayer lives from faith."

In the parable of the persistent widow in today's Gospel (Lk 18:1-8), Jesus asks his disciples if they believe that God is a just judge of all. And "do we believe that the Father always desires our good and the salvation of every man"?

Two temptations

It is important to ask about the temptations that test this belief, the Pope said. The first temptation "is strengthened by the scandal of evil, leading us to think that God does not hear the cry of the oppressed or take pity on the innocent who suffer."

"The second temptation is the claim that God must act as we wish: prayer then gives way to a command to God, to teach him to be just and effective," he said.

"Father, thy will be done."

But Jesus "frees us from both temptations," especially with his words during the Passion: "Father, your will be done," Pope Leo said.

"The cross of Christ reveals the justice of God, and the justice of God is forgiveness. He sees evil and redeems it by taking it upon himself," he said. "When we are crucified by pain and violence, by hatred and war, Christ is already there, on the cross for us and with us."

"There is no cry that God does not comfort; there is no tear that is far from his heart," he said. "The Lord hears us, embraces us just as we are and transforms us just as he is."

"He who does not welcome peace as a gift will not know how to give peace."

"Whoever rejects God's mercy, however, remains incapable of showing mercy to his neighbor. Whoever does not welcome peace as a gift will not know how to give peace," he said.

Jesus invites the faithful "to hope and action" and asks, "When the Son of Man comes, will you find faith in God's providence?" the Pope asked.

After the Mass and before praying the AngelusPope Leo XIV thanked the leaders and dignitaries from different countries who attended the canonization Mass. Among them were Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Lebanese President Joseph Khalil Aoun.

Missionaries of hope

Before some 70,000 people present, he said that "today is World Mission Day".

While the whole Church is missionary, "today we pray especially for those men and women who have left everything to bring the Gospel to those who do not know it," he said. "They are missionaries of hope among all peoples."

"Prayer for the Holy Land, Ukraine, other places".

"I heartily greet all those who have participated in this celebration, which has been a great feast of holiness!" the Pope also affirmed before praying the Angelus.

In concluding, he stressed: "We entrust to the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the new saints our continued prayer for peace, in the Holy Land, in Ukraine and in other places at war. May God grant all those responsible wisdom and perseverance to move forward in the search for a just and lasting peace."