Before meeting Pope Leo XIV in Luján, there was something as simple as where to spend the night that had to be settled. Marcela and Lorena had sleeping bags and planned to stay in the seating area. Silvia and her son Matías had brought pillows to sleep in the car. Gabriela, who would have made the trip alone anyway, found in a friend company for the vigil.
Each one organized themselves as best they could. Some set out earlier, others made room in their plans for a night under the open sky. And for Silvia and Matías, who wanted to hear the Pope speak about empathy and disability, the first sign of hospitality arrived before the mass, when a family offered them a place to rest.
Marcela and Lorena, the Junín catechists who brought sleeping bags
Marcela Abello and Lorena Borbolla are catechists at the parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Junín. As soon as they learned that the Pope was coming to Argentina, they knew they wanted to be in Luján. “There was no doubt,” they said. They signed up as soon as registration opened and traveled the day before the mass.
They didn’t have a hotel. Their plan was to check in at noon, settle in the seating area, and stay there. “Maybe we’ll catch a nap here, with sleeping bags,” they said, with the ease of someone who has already come to terms with the idea of sleeping little.
As catechists, they had listened with particular attention to Leo XIV’s call to evangelize. “We must bring everything to everyone,” they said. When the discussion shifted to topics they would like the Pope to address in Luján, they mentioned education, disability, and the economy. They found it hard to choose just one. They hoped, above all, that his words would be heard and translated into changes.
Silvia and Matías planned to sleep in the car, until a family opened their door
Silvia Chomichan and her son Matías Comba arrived from Ituzaingó at ten in the morning. They had decided to go the previous week and, once they secured the accreditations, began figuring out what time would be convenient to depart. At first they planned to travel at dawn. Then, upon learning that car access would close at noon, they moved up their arrival. They carried pillows and counted on sleeping in the car if necessary.
Through a contact of Silvia’s sister, a family in Luján offered them a space where Reiki sessions are normally held. There they had a kitchen, a refrigerator, and a bathroom. They could park the car, take a nap, and go out to explore the town knowing they had somewhere to return if they needed to rest.
“They opened their doors to us,” Silvia repeated. The possibility of having that space was especially important because of Matías’s needs. When asked what they hoped to hear from the Pope, the answer was brief: “More empathy.” They also wanted more discussion of disability. In her account, empathy had a concrete scene: someone had made room for them when they planned to spend the night in the car.
Gabriela Monzón, the Pilar woman who was willing to go alone
When Gabriela Monzón learned that Leo XIV was coming to Argentina, she felt such a surge of emotion that her daughter and her husband signed her up for the mass. She traveled from Pilar, and a friend joined her to accompany her during the wait. “If not, I would have come alone,” she said.
For Gabriela, Luján is also a place in her family history. Her children tend to arrive on foot in pilgrimage, and she recalled that one of her daughters undertook that journey during a period marked by thyroid cancer. When speaking of the Virgin and the rosary, she returned to the word she chose to describe what the Pope’s visit brought her: “It’s an unknowing, something that carries a peace.”
Gabriela planned to wait for the night with her friend. Marcela and Lorena would stay in the chairs, with the sleeping bags at hand. Silvia and Matías could return to rest fifteen blocks from there. When Silvia spoke of what she hoped to take away from Luján, she thought of peace, love, and the work that begins after receiving a blessing. “Little by little,” she said. The first time she used the word empathy in the conversation, she was asking that it be discussed more. By then, she already had a story to tell.
Source: Jimena Sampataro is a journalist.
