SYNOD 14 – 11TH GENERAL CONGREGATION: HOMILY OF H.E.
MONSIGNOR SALVADOR PINEIRO GARCIA-CALDERON, ARCHBISHOP OF
AYACUCHO, PERU, DURING THE PRAYER OF TIERCE
13.10.2014
The 11th General Congregation of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family opened at 9 o’clock this morning in the Vatican’s Synod Hall, in the presence of the Holy Father, for the “Relatio post disceptationem.”
Here is a translation of the homily of H.E. Salvador Pineiro Garcia-Calderon, Archbishop of Ayacucho, Peru, which he gave during the prayer of Tierce.
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Homily of H.E. Monsignor Salvador Pineiro Garcia-Calderon
“You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.” (Leviticus 20-26)
The Lord calls us to holiness, to live His Gospel amid a society that is used to lying and that foments hatreds and injustices. This is the task of the family: to proclaim the truth and to believe in love.
In this meditation, I want to bring the testimony of the first Saint of Christian America, who was born in my country, and is a laywoman who knew the hopes and endeavors of her family: Saint Rose of Lima.
She asked her father permission to build a hermitage, with her brother Fernando, in the back of the house and spend some time in prayer preparing the catecheses that she shared with her Dominican Tertiary friends. In n. 618 of the C.C.C. she is the model of the woman who knows how to pray, who taught that the only way to Heaven is the cross. And she also asked her father permission to turn one of the rooms of his home into a dispensary to take care of the sick and thus, in n. 2449 of the C.C.C. she is an example of charity, because in those suffering faces she saw Jesus.
She helped the family finances with her sewing. She prayed, loved her own and opened the doors of her home to give consolation and hope to the poor and the needy. And if she heard of a sick person who was far away and who was difficult to care for him, she would run to her friend Martin of Porres to entrust this task to him.
May our blood relatives find us always priests, who support the family pastoral with greater commitment and make the homes of those entrusted to us schools of the Gospel.
I want to thank my parents who taught me to love Jesus and to serve the Church. I had the immense peace and consolation to attend to them in their last hour and I wear the Bishop’s ring that speaks to us of our marriage to the Church, made with my parents’ rings , which my siblings gave me on the day of my Episcopal ordination.
Let us not forget that the love of spouses, the joy of the home and the daily sacrifice are sources of holiness.
[Original text: Spanish] [Translation by ZENIT]
