Luis Eduardo and Miriam Yolanda León, originally from Venezuela, arrived in Pinto five years ago and found a spiritual home in the parish of Santo Domingo de Silos and the Vida Ascendente movement. The diocese is celebrating the VI World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly this Sunday.
Five years ago, Luis Eduardo and Miriam Yolanda León left Venezuela to start anew in Pinto. What they did not know then was that upon arrival, they would find a community that would welcome them like family. Today, this grandparent couple is a living example of how the faith and dedication of the elderly can transform lives.
The parish of Santo Domingo de Silos in Pinto was where it all began. “A priest told me that it was God who had brought us here,” Luis Eduardo recalls. Those words marked a turning point. A few days after settling in the area, they joined the Vida Ascendente movement, a diocesan initiative that brings together older people to share faith and experience.
“We have found a family,” they both affirm. Each Vida Ascendente meeting becomes a space for listening, dialogue, and reflection on the Word of God, where each participant shares their experiences. This companionship has allowed them to strengthen their own spiritual lives and face the changes that emigration brought with hope.
The diocese is celebrating the VI World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly this Sunday, July 26, coinciding with the feast of St. Joachim and St. Anne. Pope Leo XIV, in his message for this day, reminds us that the elderly are “witnesses of faith, transmitters of memory, and protagonists of hope.” A mission that Luis Eduardo and Miriam try to live out every day with their three children and three granddaughters.
Their family story is marked by an event that strengthened their trust in God: the healing of their eldest granddaughter, diagnosed with a sarcoma when she was a child. “Our son, who is a doctor, told us: ‘Never think that it wasn’t a miracle from God’,” Luis Eduardo recounts. That transformed their faith: “Before, we lived our faith in a more superficial way; now we know the great gift that the Word of God is.”
Over the years, that faith has taken root in the new generations. Their children married in the Church, and one of their granddaughters celebrated her First Communion. For them, the best way to pass on faith to their grandchildren is to live the Gospel coherently. “In my house, we pray the Rosary every day. When my children were here, we prayed together, and now we do the same when my granddaughters are here,” Luis Eduardo explains.
The family prayer has been maintained even with the distance. “The granddaughter who is in Germany prays with us. She speaks perfect Spanish and has always been very close to this tradition,” he shares. For this couple, faith is transmitted above all through example: “It’s the only way with them: through example.”
This year, the Pope invites us to overcome the culture of discard and to recognise the spiritual wealth that older people bring. Luis Eduardo and Miriam share this call. “Our life experience can help others. We can transmit hope, accompany, listen, and show, through our own story, how God never abandons,” they affirm.
Vida Ascendente, the movement they belong to, makes this mission possible by offering a space where the elderly feel heard and called to continue evangelising. In Pinto, this Venezuelan couple has demonstrated that age is not an obstacle but an opportunity to continue building community.
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