With the migration sub-commission of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, our journey to Rome for the Jubilee of Hope was transformed into a pilgrimage of the heart. The Eternal City became the perfect stage where faith, ecclesial life, and service were woven together.
We crossed the threshold of the Holy Door not as individuals, but as a small part of an immense and diverse people. There, amidst the murmur of prayers in dozens of languages, communion that transcends borders became tangible. We were not merely visitors; we were witnesses of a living Church, breathing with the lungs of every continent.
The encounter with migrants and refugees at the feast of peoples was the jubilee’s moment of joy. Their stories, marked by loss and resilience, were not distant accounts but the concrete face of Christ the pilgrim. In their eyes shone a hope forged in suffering, a faith that defies despair.
Sharing the table, the bread, the Eucharist and the Word was a profound exercise in fraternity, a sacrament of encounter that dismantled every barrier. Praying in the various basilicas to receive the jubilee, where the first Christians celebrated their faith, we understood that the essence of the Church is always the same: to welcome the stranger, to heal wounds, and to walk together. Every Mass, every encounter, every glance was a new thread in that tapestry of ecclesial life we were weaving.
We returned with expanded souls and dusty shoes, but with hearts full. This was not a simple visit; it was an immersion in the Church that walks, dreams, and builds, side by side, a world where no one is a stranger. The Jubilee of Hope had taken root within us, confirming that in the face of the migrant beats the future of humanity and the pulse of the Gospel.
Fr. José Antonio Benítez Pineda, cmf
