Montserrat, Spain — Pope Leo XIV made a pilgrimage on Tuesday to the millennium-old Abbey of Our Lady of Montserrat, near Barcelona, where he prayed the Rosary before the revered image of the Virgin.

Following the prayer, the Pope delivered an address blending Spanish and Catalan, in which he urged the faithful to accept the invitation of Our Lady at Cana: “Do whatever He tells you to do.”

Pope Leo went on to clarify that what He tells us to do is the Gospel command to “love one another as He has loved us.”

Recalling the example of St. Ignatius of Loyola, who laid down his arms of knighthood precisely at Montserrat to follow his vocation, the Pope reflected on the human tendency to put on armors of violence, aggression, and criticism as a form of protection against inner wounds.

In contrast, he invited the faithful to “put on the armor of God,” as described by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians.

The Holy Father encouraged contemplation of Christ in His apparent vulnerability—either as a defenseless child in the arms of Our Lady, or as the crucified Lord—underscoring that divine strength is revealed in self-giving love.

Reiterating an expression that is very dear to him, Pope Leo described this force of love as “disarmed and disarming.”

The Holy Father is expected to continue his apostolic visit in Spain with a visit to the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, where he will crown and bless the tower dedicated to Jesus Christ in Antoni Gaudí’s iconic basilica.

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Claire is a Filipina global IT professional, residing in Portugal with her husband, Pedro Gabriel. She provides multimedia support, coverage and website maintenance.

She wrote articles for Where Peter Is and Ignitum Today, and provided special news coverage for Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) News Media during Pope Francis´s 2015 papal visit in the Philippines.

She was an accredited press corps member for the press coverage of World Youth Day Lisbon 2023. She was active in Catholic apologetics and pro-life initiatives back in the Philippines.

She is currently covering the 16th General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (2-27 October 2024).

She is currently taking journalism classes at the London School of Journalism. She is a member of the International Association of Religion Journalists.

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Dr. Pedro Gabriel is a Portuguese Internet journalist, having received a diploma with Honours from the London School of Journalism in 2021. He is a member of the International Association of Religion Journalists. He is currently residing in Portugal with his wife, Claire.

He is one of the co-founders of Where Peter Is, where he remains as one of its main contributors.

He won second place from the 2024 Catholic Media Association Awards in the category “History” for his book Heresy Disguised as Tradition (En Route, 2023) and also won first place and honourable mention from the same organization in the category “Pope Francis” and “Sacraments” for his apologetics book “The Orthodoxy of Amoris Laetitia (Wipf and Stock, 2022). His latest apologetics book is “Rigidity: Faithfulness or Heterodoxy?” (En Route, 2024).

He was an accredited press corps member for the press coverage of World Youth Day Lisbon 2023.

Currently, he is taking classes in moral theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. He is also a medical oncologist, a parish reader, and a published writer of Catholic novels.

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