Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle on Saturday called on the faithful to journey together as a community of hope and peace.
Speaking during Mass on the second day of a conference on new evangelization in Manila, he urged everyone to be both messengers and missionaries of peace in a fractured world.
“May the people move together… in a shared journey of hope and toward peace,” Tagle, pro-prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization, said in his homily at the UST Quadricentennial Pavilion in Manila.
The former Manila archbishop reflected on Jesus as both divine and fully human, saying the life of Christ shows how God remains with His people and how humanity can respond to God’s presence through faith and action.
“If we are to follow Jesus, we must offer our very lives,” Tagle told the participants of the Philippine Conference on New Evangelization (PCNE). “That is the covenant. That is the true pilgrimage.”
He stressed this pilgrimage is not an individual pursuit but a collective movement of a people rooted in faith, compassion, and courage.
The cardinal encouraged the faithful to embody the spirit of the Lamb of God—gentle, humble, and self-giving—as they face the challenges of modern society.
“It would be terrible if the Lamb of God sent us out and yet we looked and behaved like (beasts),” Tagle said.
He also warned against divisions and harmful intentions that go against the spirit of the Gospel, contrasting destructive conversations with what he called ‘conversations in the Spirit.’
“But there are others, conversations to kill the lamb,” he lamented. “What are we going to talk about?”
A brainchild of Tagle, the PCNE was launched in 2013 to provide inspiration and direction rooted in the spirit of new evangelization.
This year’s conference is the first since it was integrated as a national event under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, through its Episcopal Commission on Evangelization and Catechesis, in 2024.
Now, under the CBCP’s auspices, PCNE remains committed to serving the local Church “by fostering encounter with God, strengthening the experience of communion, and embracing the challenge of mission.”
