On Friday morning, October 17, Pope Leo XIV received a group of Catholic pilgrims from Russia. The 110-person delegation, which included priests, religious leaders, and laypeople, was welcomed in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican. Among the pilgrims were four Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary: three Polish sisters working in Russia and one Russian sister currently living in Rome.

The Pope greeted them joyfully and, using Rome as an example, said that God can build a new world and a renewed life from ruins. As he bid them farewell, he asked them to remain united and to set an example of love, fraternity, solidarity, and mutual respect for everyone they encounter.

“Dear brothers and sisters, yes, it is true, each one of us is a living stone in the edifice of the Church. Every stone, albeit small, placed by the Lord in the right place, plays an important role for the stability of the entire construction.”

Pope Leo XIV

Sister M. Júlia Fabis, who is part of this group of Sisters, recounts:

We were very moved by this meeting with Pope Leo XIV during the audience on October 17, 2025. We participated in the Jubilee Pilgrimage of the four Catholic dioceses of Russia to Rome.

In total, about 110 people arrived in Rome, accompanied by their bishops: they were priests, lay people, and religious. The pilgrims came from different parishes, from east to west, from the European to the Asian part of Russia. The time difference between the pilgrims’ places of origin is up to 9 hours! Thousands of kilometers separate Sakhalin in the east and Kaliningrad in the west. This characterizes a distance that normally separates, but which, in the event of the Jubilee, united the pilgrims in the heart of the Church in Rome.

We, the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary, have been serving the Church in Russia since the early 1990s, in Kaliningrad, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. During the audience, we asked Pope Leo XIV to bless the symbol of the Holy Spirit, which will be placed in the Schoenstatt chapel in St. Petersburg. This symbol expresses the request for the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the local Church and, for us, the ability to live our charism today.

It unites two jubilees: the Year of Hope and the centenary of the founding of the Sisters of Mary community in 2026.

Each of the pilgrims brought with them the intentions of many who were unable to participate in the pilgrimage and, above all, prayers for peace.

The days of the pilgrimage coincided with the novena preceding October 18, this year under the motto ” I believe, that my contributions counts.” We prayed for the first time together with the International Schoenstatt Family and felt even more a part of this great International Family.

May the words and love of Pope Leo XIV, addressed to the pilgrims during the audience, reveal the great Mystery in which we all participate, for “each one of us is a living stone in the building of the Church.”

Translation: Sr. M. Lourdes Macías