Pope Leo is currently undertaking a 12-day apostolic journey to three South American countries: Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, from November 6 to November 17, 2026. The papal visit provides opportunities for meetings and encounters not only with civic and religious authorities but also with people from all walks of life, including the sick, prisoners, the poor and people with disabilities.
During these encounters, which may be once-in-a-lifetime experiences for many of those involved, the Holy Father shares his thoughts and reflections and offers words of encouragement through his closeness and personal presence. In return, people ask him many questions and share powerful and emotional testimonies of life, faith and hope. These testimonies have deeply touched not only the Holy Father but also those participating in these events, both in person and online, including myself.
Two testimonies, in particular, have left a profound impression on me.
The first was given by an Argentine woman, Marta Griselda Torres, who was born blind and is unable to walk due to cerebral palsy. She delivered her testimony before Pope Leo and the other participants while seated in her specially designed reclining wheelchair. Her testimony was as follows:
“Holy Father, for many years, I have lived with cerebral palsy. On one of my birthdays, my mother abandoned me. She left our house and never returned. My father and my brothers had to take care of me. From a very young age, I had to face many difficulties, surgeries and endless medical treatments. For so many years, I travelled from place to place, trying to find a home. The places were only temporary and not suited for my needs, but I desperately needed a place to live … until I finally arrived at the Cotolengo (a religious care home for people with severe disabilities). This became my home, a place where I was warmly received. They helped me not to feel rejected anymore. After wandering so much and finding nothing, I had felt so pushed aside and rejected. But here, I feel so happy that all of that past pain has washed away.
It was also here that I came to know God deeply, through the people who have accompanied me for so long. For a long time, I wanted to help others, but I didn’t know how. That is why I want to do good. I want to be able to serve other people who are living in exactly the same situation, or who feel isolated, so that they know they are not alone. They are not alone! They have every right to be welcomed and loved.
Holy Father, today I give you this book (a 114-page autobiography entitled My Life, a Miracle of God: Love in Pain), which contains the story of my life. I hope it brings much good and helps many people. I present this to you in gratitude to God for carrying me through so many crosses and granting me so many blessings, and to you, Holy Father, for coming to visit us and for placing yourself among us. Thank you.”
Pope Leo graciously approached Marta and received the book from her. He then said to her: “Your life is a miracle of God.”
The second testimony was no less powerful or emotional. It was given by Father Martín Carranza, an Argentine priest who lost his ability to speak and became paralysed following complications from a surgery in 2015. Accompanied and supported by another priest, he stood before the Holy Father and delivered his testimony, which was broadcast through the cathedral’s loudspeakers.
His testimony, translated from Spanish, was as follows:
“Dear Holy Father Leo, thank you for your presence among us! I am a priest of the Archdiocese of Córdoba. After many years dedicated to service as a formator at the Major Seminary of Córdoba, to ongoing priestly formation, and to the formation of formators, eleven years ago, due to a lack of oxygen to the brain suffered during a simple surgery, I was left with multiple disabilities affecting my ability to walk, move my hands, speak and, to some extent, see.
When, little by little, I became aware of my disability, I had to discern and decide how to continue living as a disciple of Jesus and as a priest. I had several options: bitterness and sadness, anger and resentment, dejection, negativity, and other self-destructive alternatives of the same kind.
Instead, enlightened by the Good Spirit and by the testimony of those who cared for me and accompanied me with faithful love, I chose to open myself up, not to close myself off, and to go out, to share with my limits, to participate, and to love by embracing life as it comes. To keep smiling, joking, listening, advising. To continue forming myself in every dimension. I decided to pray with greater intensity, to intercede, to offer, to forgive, and to help however I can. To make of my life, with its new challenges, united to the love of Christ the Saviour, an offering to God for others. I live as a grace and a gift from the God who loves us, continuing to reside, for a few days at a time, in the seminary where I was formed and was a formator at the time of the surgery.
A couple of years ago, as the fruit of discernment between the formators and the seminarians, they asked me to preside over one Mass a month and to write the homily so that one of the brother priests concelebrating could read it. This was a great gift from God for me!
Another grace that is taking shape in my priestly ministry is that, through the initiative of my parish priest, some friends and family, and with the valuable collaboration of Radio María, it was possible to recover my voice from before the surgery. And with the collaboration of an Artificial Intelligence app, the texts that I write can be reproduced as voice audio, for homilies and for meditations on the Word as chaplain to groups of the “Teams of Our Lady” (Equipos de Nuestra Señora) Movement, in which I participate. This is beginning to open new possibilities for evangelisation, and I trust that the Holy Spirit will make them bear abundant fruit in favour of His People!
Holy Father: many priests and consecrated persons, over time, experience illnesses or health difficulties that limit our ability to take on responsibilities for the mission… What guidance or advice can you give us to live this stage of our pilgrimage with self-giving to God and to our brothers and sisters?”
I believe that Fr Martin’s question to the Holy Father at the end of his speech has already been answered beautifully through the testimony of his life. It was deeply moving, not only for those who witnessed and listened to his testimony but also for the Holy Father himself.
This week’s Gospel reminds us that God has entrusted each of us with talents according to our individual abilities. Some receive five talents, others two, and still others one. No one is left without a gift. God gives to each person in His own way and in His own time, and He expects us to use what we have received, multiply it and bear good fruit.
However, we sometimes witness how the storms of life can strike people so severely that they seem to strip them of everything. In Marta’s case, it was the storm of cerebral palsy; in Father Martín’s case, it was the devastating complications following surgery. The feeling of abandonment, being pushed aside and rejection experienced by Marta, together with the possible responses of bitterness and sadness, anger and resentment, dejection, negativity and other self-destructive alternatives described by Father Martín, could easily have trapped these two individuals in a terrifyingly dark tunnel with seemingly no way out.
Their testimonies, however, remind us that God never truly strips anyone of everything. The gifts He has entrusted to each person remain, even when life’s circumstances make it difficult to recognise or exercise them. With the help, support and companionship of others, we can overcome our fears, continue to recognise God’s goodness in our lives and become beacons of hope for others.
There is, therefore, every reason to give thanks to God for these two powerful witnesses of courage and hope. Their stories inspire us to recognise, appreciate and use the talents God has entrusted to us, regardless of our circumstances, so that we, too, may bear fruit in the world.
19 Brenbeal Street, Balwyn VIC 3103
Telephone: 03 9816 9291
Email: [email protected]
Office Hours:
Tue - Fri 9:00am – 5:00pm
JOHN JOYCE says:
Wonderful examples of people of faith suffering severe disabilities while trusting in God’s mercy and continuing to use their lives to help others.