The utilitarian mentality in which we are immersed could lead us to think that time dedicated to God is time wasted, or on the contrary, that by doing "many pious things" we earn heaven, sometimes losing peace.
We live in a cold and indifferent world. Juan José Millás said during the conclave that it was all a staging of these days, very attractive but to mask the emptiness... I think that's how many people think. However, on seeing Robert Prevost's face for the first time, Leo XIVI personally felt that God was giving us a gift that exceeded my expectations. A man who gives peace.
"Peace begins with each one of us: with the way we look at others, listen to others and speak to others" (Leo XIV). Peace is accepting differences, having the ability to listen to and appreciate others. Peace brings unity.
Some of our readers will know the story of María Ignacia García Escobar, who in 1933 after four months of agony (she suffered a real ordeal, sore from head to toe, wasted, the last vertebrae deformed and protruding, her height was decreasing every day) died of tuberculosis in the Hospital del Re (Madrid) at the age of thirty-four.
In some of the notes he made during his illness we read: "Everything in the world is vanity. Only serving and loving Our Lord will last forever". He chose the path of love, living in a continuous springtime.
Almost a century later, the life of this young laywoman from Córdoba teaches us that peace is a gift from God, as she wrote: "I will smile these days in the midst of all the droughts and tribulations you want to send me. I will be able to do everything with you".
