Pope at Saint Therese Parish: 'The love of God is always with us'
Pope Leo XIV greeted about 2,000 faithful at Saint Thérèse Parish in Juanicó, Montevideo, during his apostolic visit to Uruguay. He encouraged the faithful to trust that God’s grace and love accompany them through both joyful and difficult times. The Pope recalled his family’s devotion to Saint Thérèse and blessed the people and their devotional objects. He urged Catholics to live their faith courageously, serve others, and share the joy of being Christian.
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Pope Leo XIV stopped at Saint Thérèse Parish in Juanicó, Uruguay, where he greeted about 2,000 people, spoke of his family’s devotion to the saint and urged Catholics to trust in God’s constant presence and live their faith openly through service and unity.
The Pope entered the church for a moment of prayer before greeting the faithful gathered in the courtyard. He said he was glad to visit the parish, which the article identifies as Uruguay’s first dedicated to Saint Thérèse after her canonisation.
Leo recalled that his family, especially his father, had a strong devotion to Saint Thérèse. He described the visit as a moment of devotion and thanksgiving.
The Pope said God’s grace and love remain with people in joyful times and amid illness, pain and other difficulties. He encouraged the faithful to grow in faith and to be unafraid to say, “I am a Christian, I am Catholic, I believe in Jesus Christ.”
He also connected Christian life with serving others, walking together in unity and sharing the joy of being Christian. Before departing, he blessed the congregation and their families, as well as rosaries and other devotional objects.
Divine grace sustains Christian faith through joy and suffering
Divine grace sustains Christian faith not by keeping a person continually happy or sparing them from hardship, but by keeping them rooted in God’s love through both consolation and trial. Christian joy can coexist with grief: it is ultimately trust that suffering does not have the last word and that God remains faithful.
Christian joy is not the same as cheerfulness or the absence of sorrow. Pope Francis acknowledges that joy may change in times of difficulty, yet endure as a quiet confidence in being loved by God:
“Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.”
That distinction matters. A Christian who grieves, feels anxious, or struggles to pray has not thereby lost faith. Joy may be faint or difficult to feel while faith continues as reliance on God. Francis points to the lament of the Book of Lamentations: peace and happiness may seem absent, yet remembering the Lord’s steadfast love becomes a ground for hope.
The International Theological Commission describes grace as God’s active presence of love and mercy accompanying people in every circumstance. Christians are not promised exemption from sadness, suffering, or death; they are given hope that death will not determine their final destiny, because of the promise of resurrection and everlasting life.
This means grace does not necessarily make pain feel less painful, nor does it require someone to pretend that a tragedy is good. It sustains faith amid what remains genuinely hard to bear. Theologian Adrian J. Walker puts the point starkly: what is unbearable to us remains unbearable, yet Christ bears us up when we are close to being overwhelmed.
Catholic reflection sees a possible spiritual fruit in suffering: through faith, a person may be drawn into closer solidarity with Christ and strengthened in love. John Paul II describes a “particular grace” hidden within suffering, by which a person may be brought nearer to Christ; he also recognizes that this grace can be mysterious and difficult to perceive.
That does not mean suffering is pleasant, that every sufferer must feel consolation, or that Christians should seek pain or dismiss another person’s grief. Rather, suffering need not be spiritually fruitless. Thomas Joseph White explains that both experienced closeness to God and the painful sense of God’s seeming absence can become occasions in which love and faith are tested—and may grow through perseverance.
A person’s spiritual life may move between consolation and dryness, confidence and struggle. Julian of Norwich describes this changing experience while emphasizing that the believer can continue to intend to remain faithful and trust in God’s mercy even when consolation is hidden. The key is that faith is not measured only by how strongly God’s presence is felt at a given moment. It can also be expressed through patient fidelity: continuing to seek God, pray, love, and hope while feelings fluctuate.
Suffering can also draw believers into communion with others. Hans Urs von Balthasar reflects that Christians who receive consolation amid suffering can, in turn, console others—not by pretending that suffering has vanished, but by accompanying them in it. In this way, grace sustains not only an individual’s faith but also the Church’s shared life of compassion and hope.
The heart of the claim, then, is not that Christians escape sorrow, but that sorrow cannot sever them from God’s faithful love. Grace sustains faith in joy by directing it toward God as its source, and sustains faith in suffering by keeping hope alive when joy is hard to feel.