Five Augustinian schools become welcome centres for pilgrims

The Colegio Agustiniano, Inmaculada Concepción School, San Agustín School, Valdeluz School and Our Lady of Good Counsel School in Madrid will become welcome centres over the coming days. Organizing a journey like the one Pope Leo XIV will make through Spain from June 6 to 12 involves enormous logistical complexity. One of the needs of an event of this kind is to welcome the thousands of pilgrims who will arrive in Madrid from different parts of Spain.

So that they can take part in the events in the capital, many public and private facilities, as well as individuals, have offered to open their doors to these pilgrims, mostly young people who will spend the nights of Friday, June 5 and Saturday, June 6 in Madrid. Among them are these schools, which belong to the Augustinian Family’s educational network.

Attitudes and concrete gestures

These schools are family and home, but in the coming days they will be even more so. But what does it mean to welcome? Fr. Isaac Estévez, OSA, coordinator of educational ministry for the Augustinian schools in Spain, explains that welcoming takes shape in attitudes such as:

• Generosity
• Availability
• Giving freely

There are concrete gestures that make welcoming easier and help those who come from far away to a place they do not know feel at home:

• A smile
• An outstretched hand
• Joy in receiving the pilgrims as they arrive
• An available heart, which can be shown with a “what can I do for you?” or “what do you need?”

As the Augustinian Family has shown throughout its history, service to the Church is one of its hallmarks. At this historic moment, when the first Augustinian Pope in history visits Spain, that very Augustinian attitude of service will be embodied in these schools belonging to the Augustinian Recollects (Colegio Agustiniano), the Augustinian Missionary Sisters (Inmaculada Concepción School) and the Order of Saint Augustine (San Agustín School, Valdeluz School and Our Lady of Good Counsel School).

For the religious communities living next to the schools and the educational community working with students and families, receiving so many young people on an occasion like this is a great opportunity to be evangelized by others. Being a welcome centre also means “letting yourself be evangelized by those who come”, says Fr. Isaac.

What is offered?

The welcome centres offer the pilgrims arriving from different Spanish cities something more than a place to sleep.

Volunteers and members of the schools’ pastoral teams are working so that everyone who arrives can settle in comfortably and, besides sleeping, can shower, rest or share experiences with people they have just met.

The welcome centres will also have multi-purpose spaces that can serve as a meeting place at one moment and host a Mass or Eucharistic adoration at another.

None of this would be possible without large teams of volunteers. At Inmaculada Concepción School, in the very centre of Madrid, the team is made up of seventy young people, current students from Year 10 to sixth form as well as former students. At Our Lady of Good Counsel School, a team of forty people is getting everything ready, and at Valdeluz School the group of volunteers numbers about eighty. At San Agustín School the team is huge: two hundred volunteers, including students, teachers and families, are coordinating the welcome operation right now. And at the Colegio Agustiniano a group of fifty people, among friars, students and teachers, are working together to meet the pilgrims’ needs.

Fr. Isaac explains that, in this way, schools where students are formed every day become, during Pope Leo XIV’s journey, a home for those who arrive and great centres of evangelization; something of great value in the integral formation offered by schools that work every day from the perspective of Augustinian spirituality.