In 2015, when I was granted to manage the Church of San Antón, we knew that it had to be a field hospital, a place of welcome. It had to be a church on the move. A place that went beyond the established. And that is what we did. In this case, the margins we wanted to surpass are within the city center of a big city.
Nowadays, San Anton aims to be a church that warmers the cold heart of the big city of Madrid. To make it more human. Closer.
San Antón is a church that differs from many others in Madrid and that wants to be in line with the current pastoral of Pope Francis. I may say that the most important aspect is that, following the spirit of the Pope’s words, our church does not dissociate the spiritual from the human.
Thus, in order to work at San Antón, we do not ask anyone to be a christian but everyone has to be respectful of the pastoral line of San Anton: the priests, the coordinators and the volunteers.
Each one fulfilling an office that corresponds to their different functions, but in a common line: anyone who enters our church will have an outstretched hand and open doors; and the first ones will always be the poor and the forgotten.
A church where the beneficiaries are those excluded from the system, those who seek but do not find, those distanced from God and the Church for whatever reason, those who want silence and prayer, those wounded by life, those who are alone, those who seek consolation, those who dream of a better world.
I would like to finish by quoting the Pope Francis:
How much poverty and loneliness we unfortunately see in today’s world! How many people live in great suffering and ask the Church to be a sign of the Lord’s closeness, kindness, solidarity and mercy! This is a task that is particularly incumbent upon all those who have pastoral responsibility.
Big cities need now more than ever an holistic view of the people and spaces where to take care of those who need it most. In San Antón and in many other places of the Mensajeros de la Paz Association, we work according to that principle and hopefully, little by little, many others will join. Because together, a better world is possible.
