Pope Leo XIV arrives to celebrate Mass marking the feast of the Presentation of the Lord in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Feb. 2, 2026. The Mass also marked the Vatican celebration of the World Day for Consecrated Life. (OSV News photo/Vincenzo Livieri, Reuters)
Pope Leo XIV praised consecrated men and women for going to the world’s peripheries and refusing to abandon their people, even in the midst of conflict.
“They remain, often stripped of all security, as a living reminder – more eloquent than words – of the inviolable sacredness of life in its most vulnerable conditions,” he said 2 February in his homily for Candlemas – the feast of the Presentation of the Lord – which also marks the Catholic Church’s celebration of World Day for Consecrated Life.
“Even where weapons roar and arrogance, self-interest and violence seem to prevail,” he said.
Pope Leo, who joined the Order of St Augustine as a young man and served as a missionary in Peru for decades, reflected on the mission of religious men and women in the church and in the world.
“Dear brothers and sisters, the church asks you to be prophets – messengers who announce the presence of the Lord and prepare the way for him,” he said in his homily.
“You are called to this mission above all through the sacrificial offering of your lives, rooted in prayer and in a readiness to be consumed by charity,” he said.
“You are called to testify that the young, the elderly, the poor, the sick and the imprisoned hold a sacred place above all else on God’s altar and in his heart,” he said, and to show how each of the least is “an inviolable sanctuary of God’s presence, before whom we must bend our knee, in order to encounter him, adore him and give him glory.”