On this World Day of Peace, the Church invites us to a profound reflection: peace is a presence that is cultivated day by day. As Hospitaler Sisters, we embrace the motto: “Caring for life, especially that of the most fragile, is building peace.” This conviction is not just a wish, but the core of our vocation: there where health breaks and life becomes small, is where peace must take its strongest roots.

The peace of a “defenseless God”

Pope Leo XIV offers us a powerful image: goodness is disarming because God himself chose to become a child. In the manger, God manifests himself “defenseless,” and humanity discovers that it can only feel loved if it kneels before that Child in arms and cares for Him.

This is the perfect image for our hospitaler mission. Just like the shepherds in Bethlehem, our daily work consists of bowing before fragility. In every person with mental illness, in every elderly person, in every wound of vulnerability, we can see the face of a “defenseless God” who asks us to be loved. By caring for that fragility, we deactivate the violence of oblivion and indifference. To care is to love unconditionally.

Peace is a whisper

The Pope reminds us that, while evil is shouted “enough,” peace is whispered “forever.” In a world marked by the ephemeral, hospitality is a movement that becomes eternal. Our vocation is not a response of a moment, but a union to seek and follow peace.

Saint Augustine exhorted us: “Let what you possess burn in you to ignite others.” For the Hospitaler Sisters, that fire is our identity. If we want to bring peace to those who suffer, we must be the first to possess it. Our community and professional life seeks to be a “house of peace” where the patient receives not only technique and science, but the “luminous warmth” of one who knows they are recognized and loved.

Fragility as a compass

Often, society flees from wounded people because they question the course of success and power that the world has taken. However, the pontifical message is clear: fragility makes us more lucid. It helps us distinguish what remains from what passes.

As a Hospitaler Family, we do not evade the limit or the wound. On the contrary, we turn them into our place of encounter with God. By uniting our vocation with professional service, we demonstrate that peace is possible when:

• We substitute fear with reciprocal trust.
• We recognize the “other” not as a threat, but as a simbling.
• We transform our hands into tools of restorative justice.

Our response to hatred and war is to continue walking toward the periphery of suffering, convinced that every gesture of care toward the most fragile is a brick in the construction of that disarmed, humble, and persevering peace that the world so greatly needs.

Because caring for life is not just a professional task; it is our way of saying to peace: “stay with us forever.”