ROME – Pope Leo XIV again called Catholics to pursuit of justice on Sunday, and to allow their minds and hearts to be formed in the mold of Mary, Mother of God, who reminds us of “the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness.”

The pontiff celebrated Mass on Sunday, Oct. 12, the Jubilee for Marian Spirituality, saying the Marian spirituality lived by countless faithful is an invitation to encounter and to an authentic pursuit of justice.

October is always specially dedicated to the Holy Rosary, a centuries-old devotional prayer beloved of the faithful around the world, and the Jubilee for Marian Spirituality is part of year-long celebrations marking the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope.

In his Oct. 12 homily, the pope said Marian devotion nourishes faith and always “has Jesus as its center.”

Mary ultimately imitates Jesus in everything, he said.  “Mary’s path follows that of Jesus,” Leo said, “which leads us to encounter every human being, especially the poor, the wounded and sinners.”

For this reason, “authentic Marian spirituality brings God’s tenderness, his way of ‘being a mother,’ to light in the Church” through a culture of encounter, he said.

Pope Leo noted that some forms of worship, when not rooted in Christ, can break communion and “numb our hearts” to others.

“In these cases, we fail to encounter the people God has placed in our lives. We fail to contribute, as Mary did, to changing the world,” he said, and urged faithful to “avoid any exploitation of the faith that could lead to labelling those who are different – often the poor – as enemies, ‘lepers’ to be avoided and rejected.”

Looking to Mary is a reminder of “the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness,” he said, because she demonstrates “that humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak but of the strong who need not treat others poorly in order to feel important themselves.”

“Contemplating Mary, we realize that she who praised God for ‘bringing down the mighty from their thrones’ and ‘sending the rich away empty’ is also the one who brings a homely warmth to our pursuit of justice,” he said.

Pope Leo celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee for Marian Spirituality, which is an ancient tradition in Catholicism of living Christian life by imitating the Virgin Mary’s virtues and example of obedience and faithfulness to God.

Marian spirituality involves deepening one’s relationship with Jesus through Mary and includes special prayers, devotions and reflections on Mary’s own life and attitudes.

One of the most debated aspects of Catholic tradition by those outside of the Church, Marian spirituality and devotion is practiced by millions of faithful throughout the world, especially those who find inspiration in Marian apparitions, such as those at Fatima, Lourdes and Guadalupe, among others.

In his homily Sunday, Pope Leo said that “Jesus is God’s faithfulness, God’s faithfulness to himself,” and that because of this, the celebration of the Eucharist on Sundays “should make us Christians.”

“It should fill our thoughts and feelings with the burning memory of Jesus and change the way we live together and the way we inhabit the earth,” he said, saying, “Every Christian spirituality flows from this fire and helps to keep it alive,” including Marian spirituality.

He referred to the healing of Naaman, a commander in the Syrian army and a leper, after washing in the Jordan River upon receiving instructions to do so by the prophet Elisha in scripture.

This healing, the pope said, angered the Israelites because Naaman was a Syrian, and they were upset that God chose to heal a foreigner rather than the many lepers in Israel.

To this end, he echoed a reflection from Pope Francis on the healing of Naaman, who initially hid his leprosy beneath his armor, saying the armor “that had won him renown, in reality covered a frail, wounded and diseased humanity.”

“We often find this contradiction in our lives: sometimes great gifts are the armor that covers great frailties. If Naaman had continued only to accumulate medals to decorate his armor, in the end he would have been devoured by his leprosy: appearing to be alive, yet enclosed and isolated in his disease,” he said.

Jesus offers freedom from this danger, Leo said, noting that Jesus did not wear any armor and he himself healed 10 lepers in the Gospels, offering his gift of healing without forcing the lepers he healed to acknowledge who he was.

Only one of them, a Samaritan, realized that he had been saved, the pope said, saying, “Perhaps the fewer titles we have to boast of, the clearer it is that love is free. God is pure gift and sheer grace.”

In this sense, he said that Marian spirituality serves the Gospel in the sense that “it reveals its simplicity.”

“Our affection for Mary of Nazareth leads us to join her in becoming disciples of Jesus. It teaches us to return to him and to meditate and ponder the events of our lives in which the Risen One still comes to us and calls us,” he said.

Marian spirituality is an immersion into the history “upon which heaven opened” and therefore helps believers “to see the proud being scattered in their conceit, the mighty being cast down from their thrones and the rich being sent away empty-handed.”

“It impels us to fill the hungry with good things, to lift up the lowly, to remember God’s mercy and to trust in the power of his arm,” he said, saying Jesus invites everyone to come to him, “just as he asked Mary for her ‘yes,’ which, once given, was renewed every day.”

Recalling Jesus’s healing of the 10 lepers and the fact that only one acknowledged the healing and gave thanks, Pope Leo noted that “God’s grace can touch us and find no response. It can heal us, yet we can still fail to accept it.”

“Let us take care therefore not to go up to the temple in such a way that does not lead us to follow Jesus,” he said, saying that the path of Jesus is ultimately a path of encounter, especially with the poor, and of the pursuit of authentic justice.

Closing his homily, he said that “in a world seeking justice and peace, let us revive Christian spirituality and popular devotion to the events and places blessed by God that have changed the face of the earth forever.”

“Let us use them as a driving force for renewal and transformation,” he said, saying the jubilee year is a time “of conversion and restitution, of reflection and liberation. May Mary Most Holy, our hope, intercede for us and continue to lead us to Jesus, the crucified Lord.”

Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen