ROME – Pope Leo XIV marked the popular Marian feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe by asking that Mary to intercede in the effort to restore unity in a world marred by conflict, and in a church stained by division.

Speaking to attendees of his Mass for the Dec. 12 feast day, the pope asked that Mary would “teach the nations that want to be your children not to divide the world into irreconcilable sides, not to allow hatred to mark their history nor lies to write their memory.”

“Show them that authority must be exercised as service and not as domination,” he said, asking her to “instruct their rulers in their duty to safeguard the dignity of every person in every phase of life.”

“Make those peoples, your children, places where every person can feel welcome,” he said.

Pope Leo asked that Mary also go out in search of those who have left or distanced themselves from the church.

“May your gaze reach them where ours cannot, tear down the walls that separate us and bring them back home with the power of your love,” he said.

He begged Mary to reach out to the “hearts of those who sow discord” and help them fulfill Jesus’s desire that “all may be one.” He asked that she help in restore these hearts “in the charity that makes communion possible, for within the Church, Mother, your children cannot be divided.”

Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Mexican devotion, is one of the Catholic Church’s most popular Marian feasts, in which the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Juan Diego, an indigenous man, in 1531, miraculously imprinting her image on his cloak and asking that a shrine be built in her honor at the location of the apparitions.

Leo, who has extensive experience in Latin America, having spent nearly 30 years in Peru as a missionary before Pope Francis brought him to Rome in 2023, delivered his prepared homily in flawless Spanish.

He pointed to Mary as an example of how the word of God can enter a life and transform it, noting that Mary in the day’s Gospel reading, which included the biblical narratives of the annunciation and Mary’s immediate visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, was filled with joy.

Mary, he said, understood that “the joy of God is fulfilled in charity, and so she goes in haste toward the house of Elizabeth.”

When John the Baptist leapt inside Elizabeth’s womb upon Mary’s arrival, that moment of joyful celebration and recognition of the Mother of God, “flows into the Magnificat, where Mary recognizes that her happiness comes from the faithful God.”

“Throughout her existence, Mary carries that joy to places where human joy is insufficient, where the wine has run out,” he said, saying this is exactly what happened during the apparitions in Tepeyac in 1531.

At that moment, he said, Mary “awakens in the inhabitants of the Americas the joy of knowing they are loved by God.”

Pointing to Mary’s request that a shrine be built in her honor, Pope Leo said this is a sign of her desire to be close to the people.

“In the midst of conflicts that do not cease, injustices, and sorrows that seek relief, Mary of Guadalupe proclaims the core of her message: ‘Am I not here, I who am your Mother?’” he said, saying this reassurance “echoes the promise of divine faithfulness, the presence that sustains us when life becomes unbearable.”

The pope asked that Mary would teach believers how to be good children, and now to move forward in faith “when our strength fails and shadows grow.”

“Make us understand that with you, even winter turns into a time of roses,” he said.

Leo specifically asked that Mary intercede for and accompany young people, “so that they may obtain from Christ the strength to choose the good and the courage to remain firm in the faith, even if the world pushes them in another direction.”

“May nothing afflict their hearts so that they can welcome God’s plans without fear,” he said, asking that Mary keep youth “far from them the threats of crime, addictions, and the danger of a meaningless life.”

He also asked that she intercede for families to be strengthened, so that parents can educate with tenderness and firmness, and he asked that she inspire educators to form the minds and hearts of youth so that they convey the truth with “sweetness, precision and clarity.”

Praying specifically for clergy and consecrated persons, he asked that Mary to “guard their interior life in prayer, protect them in temptation, encourage them in weariness, and help the disheartened.”

Believers must be servants of the Gospel, he said, asking, “May we live convinced that wherever the Good News arrives, everything becomes beautiful, everything recovers health, everything is renewed.”

“Assist us so as not to tarnish, with our sin and misery, the sanctity of the Church, which, like you, is mother,” he said.

Pope Leo closed his homily asking that Mary intercede for him in his role as the Successor of Peter, that he would be able to “confirm on the one path that leads to the blessed fruit of your womb, all those entrusted to me.”

“Remind this son of yours, ‘to whom Christ entrusted the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven for the good of all,’ that those keys serve ‘to bind and loose and to redeem all human misery,’” he said.

Leo prayed that, with Mary’s protection, believers might “advance ever more united, with Jesus and among ourselves, toward the eternal dwelling place He has prepared for us and where you await us.”

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