(ZENIT News / Rome, 05.13.2025).- Pope Leo XIV returned on Tuesday to a place long considered his spiritual home: the General Curia of the Order of St. Augustine. The visit, made on the feast day of Our Lady of Fátima, was his first to the Augustinian headquarters since ascending to the papacy—yet it felt more like a family reunion than a formal occasion.
Arriving shortly before noon in a modest black car from the Vatican, the Pope slipped past Bernini’s colonnade and down Via Paolo VI to the very building where he once lived for twelve years, from 2001 to 2013, as Prior General of the Augustinians. No grand entourage. No choreographed ceremony. Just a shepherd returning to his community.
Inside the familiar walls, Pope Leo presided over a private Mass in the chapel, surrounded by brothers with whom he had once shared daily life. The chapel, echoing with chants and soft prayers, became a space not of papal formality but of fraternal memory. The timing, too, was no coincidence. May 13—the anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin Mary in Fátima—added a layer of spiritual resonance to the gathering.
After the Eucharist, the Pope joined the friars for lunch, seated at the same table where he had often broken bread with them as Fr. Robert Prevost. According to the current Prior General, Father Alejandro Moral, the visit was simple in form but profound in spirit: “He used to come regularly for meals when he was cardinal,” Moral explained. “This visit was his way of thanking the community, of returning home. It was very familiar, very warm.”
It was, in essence, a gathering of brothers. Kitchen staff, longtime employees, even custodians took the opportunity to greet the Pope. “He knows everyone here, and we all know him,” Father Moral said with a smile. “That’s what made it so beautiful.”
Though the meeting took place behind closed doors, its meaning spilled into the street. Despite a sudden downpour sweeping through the Eternal City, hundreds gathered in the square outside the Curia, hoping for a glimpse of the Pope they now felt belonged to the world, but who still belonged—deep down—to them.
Pope Leo emerged around 3:00 p.m., briefly greeting the rain-soaked crowd with a smile and a blessing. No speech, no formalities—just presence.
The Augustinian way of life, grounded in the Rule of St. Augustine, calls for a radical form of community: “To live in harmony, being of one mind and heart on the way to God.” That principle shaped Leo XIV’s years as Prior General, and it seems to continue guiding his early papacy. “He told us that we must always stay close to one another,” said Father Moral, “and live in communion, as Saint Augustine taught.”
In a world where the papacy often appears distant and ceremonious, Monday’s visit offered a quiet counterpoint: leadership rooted in relationship, holiness shaped by humility, and a Pope who still treasures the bonds that first formed him.
For Leo XIV, the seat of Peter may now be home—but his heart, it seems, still beats with the rhythm of fraternity.
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