Pope Leo XIV Greeted by 1.5 Million on the Streets & at Mass - in Homily he says "consider the urgent and binding duty of every baptized person to proclaim the Gospel" in Chiclayo, Peru FULL TEXT

At 9:15 a.m. (3:15 p.m. Rome time), Pope Leo XIV left the Teniente Coronel Pedro Ruiz Gallo Air Base in Chiclayo – Air Group No. 6 and drove to Pampas de Pimentel , where he presided over the Eucharistic Celebration at 10:56 a.m. Local authorities confirmed that approximately one million people were present along the streets of Chiclayo, while approximately 500,000 faithful attended the Holy Mass in Pampas de Pimentel.
Upon his arrival, the Pope took a tour in an open car among the faithful.
At the end of the Holy Mass, the Bishop of Chiclayo, His Excellency Monsignor Edinson Edgardo Farfán Córdova, addressed a few words of thanks to the Holy Father.
FULL TEXT HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER LEO XIV
Open space near the “Pampas de Pimentel” (Chiclayo) on
Friday, 13 November 2026
___________________________________
Dear brothers and sisters:
What a joy it is to return to Chiclayo! It is a blessing for me to be with you once again.

Thank you for your affection, the support and your prayers, especially for my health during this time of trial which, with God’s help, I am overcoming. As I look at your faces, a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord arises in my heart for the blessing you have been and continue to be in my life and episcopal ministry. I keep you very much in my prayers. I also ask you to continue praying for me, that Our Lord Jesus Christ may grant me the grace to strengthen always my brothers and sisters in the faith.

Today’s liturgy invites us to consider the urgent and binding duty of every baptized person to proclaim the Gospel. At the same time, it presents an opportunity to grow in the awareness that all Christians, whether ordained ministers or lay faithful — regardless of the degree of formation we have received in the faith — are missionary disciples. In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Saint Paul VI recalls that no baptized person can be indifferent to the task of evangelization, given that it is the Church’s essential mission, her deepest vocation and her very reason for being.

In his wisdom, God willed that the Church should be “like a universal sacrament of salvation” (Lumen Gentium, 48). Sustained by the Holy Spirit, the Church carries forward the mission of proclaiming Jesus Christ, so that, in obedience to the missionary mandate she received from him (cf. Mt 28:19-20), his redemptive work may reach the ends of the earth and transform human realities according to the values of the Gospel.

Proclaiming Jesus Christ is a crucial task, and for which we often feel inadequate. As missionary disciples in the twenty-first century, how can we proclaim him today? As a family, or as a parish or diocesan community, how can we carry out the mission to evangelize? The answer is through the witness of an authentically Christian and coherent life. First, we must place Jesus Christ at the center, both of our proclamation and of our existence. Then, we must understand that coherence is not merely the fruit of our own will, but it is also a grace for which we must implore the Lord and with which we are called to cooperate through our personal commitment and effort. For he alone has the power to transform our lives and thus renew our enthusiasm for proclaiming and handing on the faith, enabling us to help the brothers and sisters we meet along our pilgrimage to live a personal relationship with Christ and discover the joy of the Gospel.

A personal encounter with Jesus Christ — a gift that is freely given — has its focal point at the Last Supper, where, in offering his body as the bread of life and his blood as the drink of salvation (cf. Mt 26:26–28), he asks the Father that all his disciples may be one so that the world may believe (cf. Jn 17:21). The Lord awaits us above all in the Eucharist and in the word, the two “tables” that nourish us and give us life. But he also comes to us through ecclesial communion and the fraternal welcome we extend to our neighbor, where we find him present and in need. Evangelizing, therefore, does not mean imposing doctrines or trusting in efficient strategies, but bearing witness to that real encounter with Jesus Christ.

Indeed, evangelization is centered on the witness of life and closeness within the believing community. Without this witness, the explicit proclamation of Jesus Christ is not possible. As Pope Francis reminded us, evangelization is based on faith and on “the beauty of the saving love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ who died and rose from the dead” (Evangelii Gaudium, 36), and not on persuasive speeches based on mere human wisdom or on proselytism (cf. 1 Cor 2:1–5). It is also a task marked by joy, since the joy of the Gospel is renewed and multiplied when it is shared.

The joyful and life-giving transmission of the message of salvation calls for an attitude of humility and solicitude on our part, as well as profound respect for each person’s conscience and freedom. In this task, it may help us to recover the practice of “praying together,” especially in our homes, remembering that Christian families are the missionary nucleus. As “domestic Churches,” they lead their members to participate actively in the life of local communities, of the larger community of the universal Church and of society as a whole.

In this regard, the reading we have heard from the Second Letter of John also helps us to consider the dimension of charity as indispensable to evangelization, because the proclamation of the faith is linked to charity and the care of those most in need. In that letter, Saint John makes an urgent appeal to fraternal love. For a baptized person, love of neighbor is at the heart of the Christian message, the commandment received “from the beginning” (2 Jn 1:5). This practical, committed and respectful love also demonstrates the unbreakable bond between the proclamation of the Gospel and the effort to transform the structures of human coexistence (cf. Magnifica Humanitas, 30).

At the same time, charity is inseparable from truth, which is not a theory, an abstract idea or a utopia, but a person, Jesus Christ, who invites us to conform our lives to his in faithful obedience to his commandments. The harmony between charity and truth calls us to make our faith concrete, so as to spread, with renewed joy, the fragrant perfume of holiness. Let us remember that without truth, love degenerates into mere sentimentality, while truth without love becomes rigid and cold (cf. Caritas in Veritate, 3).

For this reason, evangelization today must face the changing conditions and dynamics involved in the transmission of the faith. In some regions of the world, this transmission has been almost entirely abandoned. Faced with this situation, we must all have the courage to take on new challenges, such as the religious indifference, materialism and selfishness that dictate everyday decisions. This commitment calls us to maintain harmony between a heart filled with love for God and neighbor and a mind anchored in the truth of the Gospel.

Dear friends, mission cannot be improvised. Indeed, we proclaim what we have encountered, the salvation we have experienced, the forgiveness of sins granted to us and the discovery of the true meaning of life, because “every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus” (Evangelii Gaudium, 120).

I pray that this love may set fire to the life of each one of us, so that, as baptized persons and as a Christian community, we may go out into the world and spread to others the joy born of our encounter with the risen Lord. May we make that joy present in our families, in our workplaces through the excellence of our professional work and in the public sphere, resisting the temptation to relegate faith to the private realm. In this apostolic commitment, the Church helps us become aware that, as living stones, we share a common responsibility for building God’s temple (cf. 1 Pet 2:5).

Dear brothers and sisters, the world is waiting for us and the mission is only beginning. Therefore, here in Chiclayo and throughout Peru, I invite you — beginning with this first celebration of our reunion at the Lord’s altar — to commit yourselves to sharing the living hope that is Jesus Christ and to let the Gospel “overflow” from our hamlets, towns and cities, proclaiming to all the “glory of the Lord.” May the intercession of Our Lady of Evangelization help us in the task of proclaiming the Good News to all creation (cf. Mk 16:15). Amen.

Source - https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2026/11/13/0910/01679.html