Rome Newsroom, 10 September, 2024 / 1:45 pm (ACI Africa).
On the second day of his apostolic visit to East Timor (Timor-Leste), Pope Francis first met with children and religious sisters at the Irmãs Alma School in Dili on Tuesday morning and thanked them for their testimony of love.
Approximately 50 children warmly welcomed the Holy Father and Cardinal Virgílio do Carmo da Silva, SDB, archbishop of Dili, with traditional song and dance to their school, run by consecrated sisters of the Association of Lay Ministries (ALMA) who began their missionary work in East Timor in 2004 by caring for poor, disabled, and abandoned children.
“This is what one finds here: love. Without love this cannot be understood. And so we understand the love of Jesus who gave his life for us. We cannot understand the love of Jesus if we do not begin to practice love,” the Holy Father said to the ALMA sisters and children gathered inside the school’s St. Vincent de Paul Hall.
“I want to thank you for what you do and I also want to thank the girls and the boys and the young men who give us the testimony of letting themselves be cared for. Because they teach us how we should let ourselves be cared for by God … they are our teachers.”