Natalia Cuesta, member of the Communication Office of the Order of Augustinian Recollects and student of Advertising at Villanueva University (Madrid), reflects in light of Pope Leo XIV’s message for the World Day of Peace. In this text, Mary, Mother of God, appears as the great icon of a disarmed, realistic, and deeply Christian peace.
Peace as a word that happens
Pope Leo begins his message with words that are familiar to us: “Peace be with you.” These were also his first words after being elected pontiff, the same ones that the resurrected Jesus addressed to his disciples. In a world full of violence and fear, this greeting seems to have lost its meaning. However, Pope Leo proclaims it with firm certainty: the peace that Christ pronounces happens, transforms, and ignites the reality of those who allow these words to enter their lives.
In his message for the 59th World Day of Peace, which we celebrate today, His Holiness encourages us not to forget the names and faces of those who have given us testimony of peace with their way of life: thousands of humble men and women, with docile hearts, who have allowed these words of Jesus to inhabit their lives and transform them in a definitive and radical way.
Today, on the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, I would like to focus on the first great example of that peace made life. On the woman in whom peace became flesh before becoming a greeting.
What is peace really?
When we speak of peace, it may sometimes seem that we are referring to an idyllic, empty, or unreal concept; something that we must achieve as one reaches the goal after a long race. However, peace is presented to us as a transforming presence, which crosses closed doors and lights a silent light where darkness seems to reign.
The peace of the resurrected Christ enters the fear of the apostles, coexists with their wound, and transforms it. It does not eliminate fragility, but inhabits it. Affection, presence, and commitment are capable of transforming reality from within.
Mary, silent guardian of peace
Mary knew well the closed doors, the suffering, the hopelessness, and the violence. And where darkness seems to win, the Mother of God guards peace in the night: in the angel’s announcement, in Bethlehem, in the flight to Egypt, when she finds Jesus in the temple, on Calvary, and before the tomb.
Mary does not evade reality; she teaches us that peace can also be deeply realistic when we allow ourselves to be inhabited by God. She shows us that reality is not reduced only to what is visible and that, even in the darkest darkness, the light of the One who is the Light has shone.
The peace that the Pope proposes does not deny impotence, but resists calling hopelessness realism. Mary suffers the greatest impotence: seeing her Son die. And yet, at the foot of the cross, she remains, trusts, and guards.
Peace is lost when it becomes a distant ideal and separates from the reality we inhabit. Our Mother teaches us to welcome with an open heart and trust. Her pain bears fruit when Easter arrives and hope does not disappoint her. Mary goes through history as one who does not flee from pain, but neither allows herself to be defined by it.
A disarmed and disarming peace
Throughout his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has insisted on one idea: peace must be disarmed and disarming.
Disarmed like that of one who does not prepare to fight by wearing armor in the heart, but welcomes reality without defenses. The peace of Jesus is disarmed because it renounces violence as a language. It could be confused with passivity, but in reality it is a radical form of resistance that does not enter into the logic of fear, deterrence, or armament as means of security.
Mary is a great example of this. Her strength resists, but never attacks. She does not flee or respond with violence: she remains. Faced with aggression, she responds with a persevering love that does not seek to impose itself, but to accompany from silence and faithful presence.
The fragility that disarms
The peace of Christ is also disarming. Like goodness, it disarms the other. The most tangible example is the Incarnation: God who becomes a child, small and defenseless.
Leo XIV recalls words from his predecessor:
“Human fragility has the power to make us more lucid regarding what remains and what passes, what gives life and what causes death.”
Fragility calls us to disarmament. Mary is the means by which God becomes a child. She welcomes her own weakness, knowing herself to be sustained by God, and welcomes God himself into her womb. The child in his mother’s arms reveals the image of peace that Christ wants to bring us, and dismantles the logic of dominion.
Guardians of peace, a job for 2026
Celebrating Mary, Mother of God, today on the World Day of Peace is not an empty gesture, but an essential key to understanding the Pope’s message.
In her we discover that Christian peace is not born from the balance of forces or the absence of conflicts, but from a disarmed heart that trusts in God even when it does not understand the way.
Mary did not change history by wielding weapons or raising her voice, but by welcoming life, remaining faithful, and guarding hope when everything seemed lost. Thus she teaches us that peace is not imposed: it is protected with persevering love.
In a world tempted by fear, rearmament, and hopelessness disguised as realism, the Mother of God reminds us that true peace begins when we drop the defenses of the heart and allow God to dwell in our fragility. Only then, like her, can we be witnesses of a disarmed and disarming peace, capable of crossing the closed doors of our history and opening paths of life where darkness seems to reign.
