During the Sixth General Assembly of CEAMA, held in Bogotá, Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, recently elected president of CEAMA, presided over the Eucharist on the Solemnity of St. Joseph on Thursday, March 19, delivering a profound and enlightening homily centered on “welcoming God’s dreams” as a spiritual, ecclesial, and missionary path.
From God’s dream to the saving presence
Drawing from the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 1:16, 18–21), Cardinal Steiner invited the congregation to contemplate St. Joseph as the man who knew how to welcome the transition from promise to presence. “God dreamed,” he said, emphasizing that this dream did not remain a distant expectation but became a concrete reality in history: in Mary, in the Child, in the daily life of a family.
Joseph, faced with the mystery of Mary’s motherhood, does not understand, but neither does he judge nor condemn. In his silence and in his decision to “send her away in secret,” he reveals himself as a just man, respectful of dignity. However, it is in the dream—in the deep listening to God—that he finds the light to discern. There he receives the invitation to welcome: to welcome Mary, to welcome the Child, to welcome the mystery.
“Joseph welcomes without conditions,” the Cardinal emphasized, noting that this gesture inaugurates a new way of inhabiting the world: making one’s own life a dwelling place for God.
Joseph, a man of the journey and of trust
The homily traced the various moments in which God’s dreams guided Joseph’s life: the birth in Bethlehem, the precariousness of the manger, the flight to Egypt, the return to Israel, and the hidden life in Nazareth.
Each of these episodes reveals a Joseph who is deeply open, who does not act according to his own plans, but in trusting obedience to God’s will. Migrant, pilgrim, father, and guardian, Joseph becomes a sign of a faith that walks amid uncertainty.
“Dreams made him a father, a caregiver, a presence,” said the Cardinal, emphasizing that in every place—even in a foreign land—Joseph knew how to make his life a dwelling place for the Son of God.
Welcoming: Spiritual Path and Mission
One of the central themes of the reflection was welcoming as a fundamental attitude of Christian life. A welcoming that is not passivity, but openness, listening, availability, and action.
“Welcoming in the face of adversity, misunderstandings, and challenges” implies allowing oneself to be guided by God even when one does not have all the answers. In this sense, the Cardinal recalled that Joseph, by welcoming the mystery of Christ, becomes a collaborator in redemption, a “minister of salvation,” as Pope Francis affirms in his apostolic letter Patris Corde.
This path of welcoming is presented today as an invitation to the whole Church, especially during Lent: to allow oneself to be transformed by the mystery of life that God offers and to prepare for the fullness of Easter.
Being Prophets of the Kingdom Through Welcome
The homily also shed light on the mission of the disciples today: we are not, first and foremost, proclaimers, but rather those who welcome the Kingdom. Welcoming the Kingdom means making it visible, embodying it, and demonstrating it in concrete life as truth, justice, love, and peace.
From this perspective, the Church is called to be a sign of that Kingdom that includes everyone, where every person and all of creation have a place in our Common Home.
Cardinal Steiner emphasized that this call is lived out synodally, walking with the People of God, listening, discerning, and acting together. Thus, the experience of CEAMA becomes a concrete expression of this shared journey.
The Amazon: a place where God’s dream becomes history
In harmony with the Amazonian ecclesial process, the Cardinal invited everyone to embrace the dreams that the Spirit has stirred up in the Church, especially through *Querida Amazonia* and the Synod for the Amazon.
These dreams—social, cultural, ecological, and ecclesial—continue to serve as a roadmap for building a Church with an Amazonian face: rooted in the territories, committed to the peoples, and a defender of life.
“Embracing God’s dreams makes us participants in a love that redeems the universe,” he affirmed, inviting everyone to open themselves to God’s surprises and to let themselves be led by his Spirit.
A Church that becomes a dwelling place
Finally, Cardinal Steiner expressed his hope that this Assembly would strengthen the particular Churches to be living signs of the Kingdom: a Kingdom that liberates, transforms, and saves.
Following the example of Saint Joseph, the Church in the Amazon is called to be a dwelling place: a place of welcome, of care, of shared life. A Church that does not observe from the outside, but dwells with the people, listens to their cries, and walks with them.
Thus, the homily becomes a profound invitation: to embrace God’s dream today, so that the Amazon—and the world—may truly be a home of life for all.