Pope at Mass in Kilamba: Jesus walks beside the Church in Angola
By Deborah Castellano Lubov
"Remain faithful to what the Church teaches, trust your Pastors, and keep your gaze fixed on Jesus, who reveals Himself in a particular way in the Word and in the Eucharist."
Pope Leo XIV insisted on this point during his Mass in Kilamba, Angola, on Sunday 19 April 2026, during his first full day in the country and in the midst of his four-nation journey to Africa.
READ POPE LEO XIV'S FULL HOMILY
In his homily, he said that with a heart full of gratitude, he celebrates the Eucharist in their midst, stressing he thanks God for this gift and for their joyful welcome.
Angola, a beautiful but wounded country
On this Third Sunday of Easter, the Pope recalled the day's Gospel according to St. Luke, which recounted the passage of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Two of the Lord’s disciples, with their hearts wounded and sorrowful, leave Jerusalem to return to their village of Emmaus, after having seen the death of that Jesus in whom they had placed their trust and whom they had followed. Initially they are despondent, but then all this changes when they recognize that Christ is in their midst, that the Lord Jesus is walking beside them.
Pope Leo told those before him that in this opening scene of the Gospel, he sees reflected the history of Angola, "this beautiful yet wounded country, which hungers and thirsts for hope, for peace, and for fraternity."
"The conversation along the road between the two disciples, who recall with discouragement what had happened to their Master," he continued, "brings to mind the suffering that has marked your country: a long civil war, with its aftermath of enmity and division, squandered resources, and poverty."
Faced with all of this, the Holy Father acknowledged that when one has long been immersed in a history so marked by suffering, one risks becoming like the disciples of Emmaus, losing hope and remaining paralyzed by discouragement. One is weary, not knowing how to begin again or whether it is even possible.
Yet the Lord, he reminded the faithful, draws near to the two discouraged disciples and by becoming their companion on the journey, "helps them piece together that story, to look beyond their pain, to discover that they are not alone on the path, and that a future—still inhabited by the God of love—awaits them."
He walks beside us, granting us grace to set out again
"Dear friends, the Good News of the Lord, also for us today, is precisely this," Pope Leo underscored. "He is alive, He is risen, and He walks beside us as we journey along the road of suffering and bitterness. He opens our eyes to recognize His work and grants us the grace to set out again and to rebuild the future." Here, then, is the path set before us—and for you, dear brothers and sisters of Angola—to begin again: on the one hand, the certainty that the Lord accompanies us and has compassion for us; on the other, the commitment that He asks of us.
The Holy Father explained that above all we experience the Lord’s companionship in our relationship with Him.
He said we encounter God in prayer, in listening to His Word, which makes our hearts burn within us, as it did for the two disciples, and above all in the celebration of the Eucharist.
"For this reason," he cautioned, "we must always be attentive to those forms of traditional religiosity which, while certainly part of the roots of your culture, also risk confusing and mixing in magical and superstitious elements that do not help us on the spiritual journey."
"Remain faithful," he said, "to what the Church teaches, trust your Pastors, and keep your gaze fixed on Jesus, who reveals Himself in a particular way in the Word and in the Eucharist. In both, we experience that the Risen Lord walks beside us, and united with Him, we too overcome the deaths that besiege us and live as those who have been raised."
Healing wounds and rekindling hope
Knowing that we are not alone, the Holy Father said, this must drive us to heal wounds and rekindle hope.
"The history of your country, the still difficult consequences you endure, the social and economic challenges, and the various forms of poverty," Pope Leo underscored, "all call for the presence of a Church that walks alongside her people and is able to hear the cry of her children. A Church that, with the light of the Word and the nourishment of the Eucharist, can revive lost hope."
He said the Church needs people like you, who give themselves as Jesus breaks the bread for the two disciples of Emmaus.
Angola, he said, needs Bishops, priests, missionaries, men and women religious, and lay faithful who have in their hearts the desire to break their own lives and give them to one another.
Constructing a future of hope is possible
By the grace of the Risen Christ, he noted, "we too can become this broken bread that transforms reality. And just as the Eucharist reminds us that we are one body and one spirit, united in the one Lord, so we too can—and we wish to—build a country where old divisions are definitively overcome, where hatred and violence disappear, and where the wound of corruption is healed by a new culture of justice and sharing."
"Only in this way," he insisted, "will a future of hope be possible, especially for the many young people who have lost it."
Pope Leo concluded his homily by encouraging the faithful of the country to look to the future with hope and to build the hope of the future. "Do not be afraid to do so! The Risen Jesus, who walks the road with you and breaks Himself as bread for you, encourages you to be witnesses of His Resurrection and protagonists of a new humanity and a new society."
He also reassured that on this journey, the nation's Catholics can count on the closeness and prayers of the Pope, and he said, as he entrusted them to the Blessed Mother, that he knows he can count on them too.
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