In our darkest hour, he reminded us of God’s promise
With the rest of the world, I was shocked to learn that Pope Francis died Easter Monday morning. It was remarkable to see a photo from Easter Sunday in the Wall Street Journal of the Holy Father being driven in the popemobile through the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square, as well as the article about the pope’s brief meeting with Vice President JD Vance.
Of course, with the pope’s age, ill health and recent long hospital stay, his death was not a complete surprise. With the entire Catholic Church, as well as with many people of good will, I mourn the death of Pope Francis. The Holy Father served the church with zeal and dedication.
The Holy Father’s motto, “With mercy chosen,” foreshadowed mercy to be an overriding theme of the pontificate of
ARCHBISHOP
JOSEPH F. NAUMANN
Pope Francis. Early in his papacy, during an interview, he was asked to describe himself. The Holy Father thought for a few moments and then shared that the best description of himself was a sinner touched by God’s mercy.
Pope Francis also shared that as a young man, it was after having gone to confession on the feast of St. Matthew that he first began to consider the possibility of a priestly vocation. Early in his
LIFE WILL BE VICTORIOUS
papacy, Pope Francis declared a Year of Mercy. The Holy Father’s compassion for the unborn, the unmarried pregnant mother, the refugee, the migrant, the sick, the suffering, the victims of violence and war, and most importantly the poor, flowed from his own personal experience of God’s mercy.
One of the most memorable events during his pontificate was Pope Francis leading the entire world in a Holy Hour prayer on March 27, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pope Francis knelt before the Blessed Sacrament in an eerily empty St. Peter’s
Square. The Holy Father chose to focus our attention upon a passage in the Fourth Chapter of the Gospel of St. Mark, when the apostles were caught in a terrifying storm while Jesus slept in the boat.
Mark contrasted the terror of the disciples, many of whom were experienced fishermen that were used to sea squalls, to the absolute calm of Jesus asleep in the stern of the boat. During this violent and terrifying storm, Jesus was completely at peace, sleeping serenely while the apostles were in a panic. Pope Francis pointed out that this was the only time in the four Gospels that Jesus is depicted as sleeping.
The disciples awakened Jesus and accused him of not caring that they were about to perish. After calming the wind and the sea, Jesus asked the disciples: “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” Pope Francis led the
church through some turbulent times, but he was always pointing the church to the truth that we need not be afraid, because Jesus is in the boat with us.
During this time when we mourn the loss of Pope Francis, and some are anxious about the selection of the next pope by the College of Cardinals, it is important to remind ourselves that Jesus is in the boat with us. We need not be terrified, because we know Our Lord is with us.
One of my favorite documents written by Pope Francis was his first. It is entitled “The Joy of the Gospel.” Pope Francis echoed his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, in reminding us that our Catholic faith is not first and foremost about our dogma or moral teaching. It is rather about an encounter with a person, the person of Jesus Christ.
In reflecting on evangelization,
sharing the joy of the Gospel with others, Pope Francis wrote: “Consequently, an evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral! . . . And may the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the good news not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ.”
Even as we mourn the death of Pope Francis, let us not become self-absorbed or fearful. Jesus is with his church. We need not be terrified or fearful about the future. I think the best way we could honor Pope Francis is by being witnesses of the joy of the Gospel, witnesses of gratitude for the gift and beauty of our Catholic faith.
CNS PHOTO/VATICAN MEDIA
Pope Francis leads a prayer service in an empty St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in this March 27, 2020, file photo. The coronavirus pandemic had shut down the world, and Italy was among those countries hardest hit in the early days of the pandemic.
A pope for unprecedented times
By Ines San Martin OSV News
Pope Francis, history’s first pope from the global south and a maverick who often delighted the world, died April 21 after fighting pulmonary disease for the last few months.
Elected in March 2013 as an outsider who could reform the Roman Curia, meaning the central government of the church, but who often surprised and even occasionally alarmed the cardinals who backed him, Pope Francis died at age 88 at the Vatican.
The pope “from the end of the earth,” as the Argentine pontiff put it during his first public blessing, ended up leading the Catholic Church through two great crises: the global explosion of the clerical sexual abuse scandals and the unprecedented interruption of pastoral life caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Pope Francis succeeded Pope Benedict XVI, the first in 600 years to resign the pontificate, creating an unprecedented scenario of two popes living side by side in the Vatican — as Benedict himself put it, one pope “governing” and the other “praying.”
An advocate for the dignity of workers, for migrants, interfaith dialogue as a way to prevent conflict, nuclear disarmament and an end to the death penalty, Pope Francis collected both friends and foes in his attempt to turn the 1.3 billionstrong Catholic Church into a “field hospital” with its doors open to all and with a special love for those on the margins.
Early on, Pope Francis provided perhaps the most celebrated (and arguably misunderstood) papal sound bite of the last century when he said in response to a question about a gay cleric, “Who am I to judge?” However abused the line may have been, it captured something of the spirit of a papacy that clearly valued people more than theory and pastoral sensitivity more than law.
Pope Francis leaves behind an unfinished reform of the Roman Curia. He took several steps early on intended to promote transparency, accountability and decentralization, but as time went on, the overhaul seemed to stall and fresh scandals erupted, including a $200 million Vatican property deal in London in 2019 that led to the departure of several key reformers and raised questions about whether anything had really changed.
Pope Francis also led the church at a time when the clerical abuse crisis crossed borders far beyond the West, with an unprecedented crisis in Chile that drove the Argentine pontiff to
make a U-turn when it came to addressing crimes committed by clergy.
In an attempt to face matters head-on, he summoned heads of the national bishops’ conferences and the leaders of religious orders to Rome for a three-day summit in February 2019.
Critics argue the summit left behind considerable unfinished business, but others say that after
Pope Francis’ leadership, no bishop in the world can claim he doesn’t know what’s expected when it comes to caring for victims and bringing perpetrators to justice.
Born in 1936 and ordained a Jesuit priest in 1969 at age 33, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was appointed auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires by St. John Paul II in 1992 at age 56. He was made a cardinal nine years
later, in 2001, and elected pope on March 13, 2013, just months after turning 76.
In his first public appearance, the pope, who took his name from St. Francis of Assisi, demonstrated his commitment to humility — not only giving a blessing but asking people to pray for him. The line
>> See “BISHOPS” on page 4
PHOTO BY STEFANO SPAZIANI
Pope Francis laughs with pilgrims during his weekly general audience at the Paul VI hall at the Vatican on Jan. 28, 2015.
SPREADING THE JOY OF THE GOSPEL
A priest hears Pope Francis’ confession during a Lenten penance service the Vatican on March 29, 2019.
In keeping with a time-honored tradition, Pope Francis exchanges zucchettos with a pilgrim outside in St. often be seen cheerfully swapping his zucchetto as he made his way through the crowd.
PHOTO BY STEFANO SPAZIANI
Pope Francis shares a tender moment with a child during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on April 15, 2015.
PHOTO BY STEFANO SPAZIANI
A young pilgrim gets a fleeting grasp of the pope’s hand during Pope Francis’ weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Oct. 30, 2013.
ROME (OSV News) — From the first moments of his papacy, Pope Francis was heard using one particular word in his pontifical speeches. For him, it was a reminder that God is not the one who punishes, but the one who loves, and that the church, led by him, should seek to be the same — the church of “tenderness.”
Until the very last moments of his papacy, the “pope of tenderness” was his other name — like when he visited the Roman prison on Holy Thursday, blowing a kiss to prisoners greeting him from behind the glass doors.
In his first speech, during the homily at the inauguration Mass of his pontificate, Francis spoke of tenderness for the first time: “We must not be afraid of goodness or even tenderness!” He added that “caring, protecting, demands goodness; it calls for a certain tenderness.”
Over the years, it became clear that Francis, rather than speaking of tenderness, preferred to practice what he preached, whenever he had the opportunity.
Hundreds of names confirm this: Vinicio Riva, a man with a face disfigured by a rare genetic disease, whom the pope kissed in St. Peter’s Square shortly after his pontificate started. Riva himself acknowledged that his own father never dared to embrace him. He died in January 2024.
In April 2018, Pope Francis consoled little Emmanuele during a visit to a parish in Rome. The boy, between sobs, asked the pope with great concern if his father, who had just died, was already in heaven because he was an atheist. Francis put him at ease, assuring him that God was proud of his father, because he wanted to baptize his children without being a believer.
A month later, in May 2018, Pope Francis embraced the smiling young Nigerian woman Blessing Okoedion, trafficked from her country and forced into prostitution in Italy, whom Catholic Sisters and the pope himself helped to regain lost dignity.
“I still seem to hear the force with which Francis made it very clear that prostitution is a crime because it involves torturing a woman,” said Eva Fernández, author of “El Papa de la Ternura” (“The Pope of Tenderness”).
“Countless are his meetings behind closed doors in Santa Marta or during his international trips to listen to and ask forgiveness from the victims of sexual abuse within the church. He remained in contact with some of them until the end, taking a fatherly interest in their problems,” the Spanish journalist with COPE Catholic radio told OSV News.
His tending to the homeless of Rome became somewhat legendary. On Dec. 17, 2013, the first birthday that Francis celebrated as pope, the poor were his guests at Santa Marta Mass. With the help of Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner and prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, the pope made it clear that even small gestures matter in a tender approach.
“Calling people that wrote letters
Pope Francis had a heart operating on God’s frequency, said author
to him out of the blue was something completely normal for him, but a woman in Venice got an even bigger surprise when Francis sent her money after she wrote to him that she was robbed of a purse on her way to the hospital to visit the sick husband,” Fernández said.
A parish priest received the Vatican Secretariat of State-sealed envelope for the lady, who was in her 80s. It contained the equivalent of $200, four times the sum stolen from the elderly woman.
On another occasion, in 2016, Pope Francis donated a pair of scooters to an elderly couple in Rome who were not able to leave their house because of the effect of diabetes and hypertension on their mobility.
Through his charitable point man, Cardinal Krajewski, he has sent dozens of ambulances to
how moved he was in that prison when he listened to Janeth, a repentant prisoner, as she shared with him her suffering and that of so many other fellow prisoners, because they watched their children grow up in prison.”
The images remembered from the papacy will be many — from children embraced in the Lesbos refugee camp in 2016 to the then84-year-old priest Father Ernest Troshani Simoni, a survivor of communist persecution in Albania who moved Pope Francis to tears with his testimony of torture and Christian perseverance. Camera shutters were clicking away as the pope embraced Father Simoni during the apostolic trip to Albania in September 2014. Two years later, the pope elevated the elderly priest to the cardinalate.
“Francis lived the tenderness he preached with a radicalism that requires complicating one’s life. For example, he set out to fight against the indifference with which the world treated the Rohingya minority and did not mind undertaking a grueling journey to focus on the tragedy. These people were suffering in the face of the silence of the international community, and he wanted to be there for them,” Fernández said of the Muslim ethnic group persecuted in Myanmar.
During the apostolic trip, in Bangladesh, Pope Francis received 16 refugees fleeing Myanmar, living in the Cox’s Bazar camp.
“It was almost impossible to hold back tears as an interpreter translated to the pope the atrocities they had suffered before escaping,” the Spanish journalist recalled.
“Francis would not let go of their hands. One refugee told the pope that Myanmar’s military killed his 3-year-old son by throwing him into the fire without him being able to do anything to stop it,” Fernández remembered.
After listening to the testimonies, the pope apologized for the “indifference of the world.”
“The presence of God today is also called ‘Rohingya,’” the pope said during the event in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka Dec. 1, 2017.
He then asked forgiveness “in the name of all those who have persecuted you or done you wrong.”
Ukraine, thousands of kilos of warm clothes and medical supplies to places in the world that have suffered wars, earthquakes or floods, and supported Africa’s impoverished nations.
Pope Francis visited some 650 female inmates during his apostolic trip to Chile in 2018, many of whom were imprisoned with babies and small children.
“As women,” he told them, “you have an incredible ability to adapt to new circumstances and move forward. Today, I appeal to that ability to bring forth the future that is alive in each one of you. That ability enables you to resist everything that might rob you of your identity and end up by killing your hope.”
Fernández, who traveled with the pope on dozens of trips, remembered every detail of this meeting.
“I had the opportunity to witness
“The most important spiritual leader in the world had just asked for their forgiveness for cruelties he had not committed. Unheard of,” Fernández said.
“He was a witness of tenderness that always knew how to put himself in the place of the other. It’s endless examples,” she added, listing mothers like Rosalba, an 80-yearold widow who had lost her son and who received a call from the pope every month until her death. Or Anna, a single mother who decided to go ahead with her pregnancy and Francis baptized her son.
“I can’t even count calls to prisoners and refugees, to priests, nuns, young people and children, shopkeepers, firefighters,” the book author said. “We could go on and on.
“His revolution of tenderness was contagious. It is something that only springs from hearts that move on the same frequency as God.”
CNS PHOTO/VATICAN MEDIA HANDOUT VIA REUTERS
A man touches the cheek of Pope Francis during the pontiff’s general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on June 26, 2019.
Pope Francis lived up to his namesake’s care for creation
By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) —
Tapping into the spirit and spirituality of his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis made care for creation and for all that lives on the earth a pastoral priority.
The importance of respecting and protecting the environment had been heralded by his predecessors: St. John Paul II spoke of human ecology and insisted ecological conversion was integral to supporting human life; and Pope Benedict XVI gained the moniker “the green pope” as the Vatican began to walk the talk with solar panel installations, a fleet of electric vehicles and other environmental initiatives.
But Pope Francis took it to the next level and used his position as a respected global figure to become a leading voice to reinvigorate existing efforts and rally all of humanity to see caring for creation not as a political, social, scientific or ideological battle, but as a moral imperative to hear and respond to the cry of the earth and those most affected by its degradation — the poor.
And he upped the ante on how serious an injury this is by saying abusing the “common home” of the earth, its ecosystems and all forms of life that depend on it, “is a grave sin” that damages, harms and sickens.
Pope Francis insisted the global crises unfolding in the world reflected an interconnectedness and interdependence between human beings and the earth. Social, economic, political and environmental issues are not separate problems, but are the many dimensions of one overarching crisis.
Embracing “integral ecology” recognizes the interconnectedness, he said, and how the values, mindsets and actions of people affect all human endeavors — the cultural, social, political, economic, spiritual and theological — and the planet.
An integral ecology goes “to the heart of what it is to be human,” Pope Francis said. The flora and fauna, the heavens and seas and all people are not objects to be used and controlled, but are wondrous reflections of the divine; they are God’s creations and are gifts to be protected, loved and shared.
The core of his teaching on integral ecology, its principles and practical applications were laid out in his landmark 2015 document, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home,” the first papal encyclical on the environment.
The document’s influence on the international community was evident when world leaders met in Paris for the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference, commonly referred to as COP21. “Not only had practically every delegate heard of ‘Laudato Si’,’ Pope Francis was cited by more than 30 heads of
state or government in their interventions,” Archbishop Bernardito Auza, who represented the Holy See at the United Nations, said in a 2019 speech.
In fact, several experts believed the document had a deep impact on the successful adoption of the landmark Paris Agreement, a binding agreement for nations to fight climate change and mitigate its effects.
Pope Francis, likewise, issued a follow-up document, “Laudate Deum” (“Praise God”) ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in the United Arab Emirates in 2023. The exhortation presented an even stronger critique of global inaction and indifference to climate change.
The pope had planned to attend the conference, which would have made him the first pope ever to go to one of the global gatherings that began in 1995. However, a bronchial
infection, which made his breathing very labored, forced him to cancel his planned trip.
Pope Francis was not without his detractors. He had been labeled “naive” for following supposedly trendy notions about climate change; he often was accused of straying beyond his strictly spiritual role; and other critics expressed fear that his denunciation of “an economy that kills” and calls for change would support socialistleaning positions, especially distrust of the free-market economy.
But for Pope Francis, it was never a question of choosing either economic growth or care for the environment, as some detractors claimed. The path the pope pointed out envisioned the promotion of “integral human development,” which gives priority to helping all people thrive by protecting the planet and all its gifts now and for
future generations.
In 2016, Pope Francis established the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, based on this understanding that safeguarding creation promotes peace and human rights and benefits economies, communities, and present and future generations.
For the pope, the problem was not a single policy or position, but what he called “globalization of indifference,” an economy of exclusion and a throwaway culture.
Pope Francis’ stance, like his predecessors, was always a moral one — not pushing specific policies or programs but laying out the Gospel approach to guide citizens and policymakers so they could respond to problems more ethically.
Changing the world requires first transforming one’s thinking and values, and “we need to see — with the eyes of faith — the beauty of God’s saving plan, the link between the natural environment and the dignity of the human person,” the pope once wrote to young people in the Philippines.
Pope Francis solidly established ecology and safeguarding creation as a pro-life, pro-marginalized, pro-family issue. If people have no problem throwing away reusable resources or edible food when so many people are starving, there is a similar “throwaway” attitude toward people believed to not be useful — including the unborn, the sick and the elderly, he said.
Christianity teaches that God created the world and everything in it with a certain order and proclaimed it good. As stewards of God’s creation, Pope Francis said, people have an absolute obligation to respect that gift.
CNS PHOTO/PAUL HARING
Pope Francis walks past flowers as he celebrates Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in this April 16, 2017, file photo. Pope Francis made care for creation and for all that lives on the earth a pastoral priority.
OSV NEWS PHOTO/RICARDO ARDUENGO, REUTERS
A woman picks through trash on a sidewalk in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 13, 2021. Pope Francis released his landmark environmental encyclical “Laudato Si’” 10 years ago May 24, 2015.
Precise rules govern what happens between popes
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS)
— Centuries of experience dealing with the death, or occasional resignation, of a pope has left the Catholic Church with thorough instructions detailing who has responsibility for planning the funeral, preparing for the election of a new pope and taking care of essential business in the meantime.
The instructions are found in St. John Paul II’s 1996 apostolic constitution, “Universi Dominici Gregis,” which was revised by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 and again just before he resigned in 2013.
The funeral and burial of a pope who dies in office should take place “between the fourth and sixth day after death,” the document said. The exact date is determined at a meeting of all the cardinals able to reach the Vatican immediately after the papal death.
The cardinals also determine when the conclave to elect a new pope should begin, although Pope Benedict’s update of “Universi Dominici Gregis” states that it should be at least 15 days from the death or resignation of the pope and can be no more than 20 days since the vacancy of the papacy.
An earlier start is possible, he said, “if it is clear that all the cardinal electors are present.” Cardinal electors are those who were under the age of 80 on the day the pope died or resigned.
The funeral marks the start of a mandated nine-day period of official mourning. For the next eight days other memorial Masses are celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica. The nine-day period is known as the “novendiales.”
With the death of a pope, most top-level Vatican officials — including the prefects of dicasteries — lose their jobs, but that does not mean most Vatican employees get time off. Regular business continues with dicastery secretaries overseeing the steady flow of paperwork, correspondence and meeting planning.
However, the publication of documents, the nomination of new bishops and the approval of statutes for Catholic universities and religious orders are suspended. Anything that must be issued in the name of the Vatican or in the name of the pope must await the election of a new pope and the re-confirmation or appointment of prefects for the various offices.
The two senior Vatican officials who retain their titles and responsibilities are the “camerlengo” or “chamberlain,” currently U.S. Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, whose job begins in earnest when a pope dies or resigns, and the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis. The Apostolic Penitentiary is a Vatican court dealing with matters related to the sacrament of confession and to indulgences, so keeping him in office
ensures the possibility of absolution for penitents guilty of serious sin and seeking forgiveness.
“Universi Dominici Gregis” also specified that “the almoner of His Holiness will also continue to carry out works of charity in accordance with the criteria employed during the pope’s lifetime.” That position is held by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, who also is prefect of Dicastery for the Service of Charity.
Everything having to do with the funeral and with preparations for the conclave to elect Pope Francis’ successor belongs to the College of Cardinals.
The rites and rituals used — from the formal verification of the pope’s death to the eight memorial Masses after the funeral — are published in the “Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis” (“Funeral Rites of the Roman Pontiff”), originally approved by St. John Paul II in 1998, but published only the day after his death in 2005.
In late 2024, the Vatican released a newer, simplified version on the orders of Pope Francis.
The physician who directs the Vatican health care service provides a civil certification of the pope’s death, including its cause.
But the ritual verification of the pope’s death takes place in the chapel of his residence and is presided over by the chamberlain, assisted by the dean of the College of Cardinals, the master of papal liturgical ceremonies and the physician.
If it ever was a custom to use a silver hammer to tap on the newly deceased pontiff’s forehead to make sure he is dead, it is a long disused practice.
The chamberlain also is responsible for placing seals on the pope’s study and bedroom and officially notifying the cardinal vicar for Rome and the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Before the conclave, all the
cardinals — including those over 80 — participate in “congregations.”
The “general congregation,” with all the cardinals, handles “important matters,” according to “Universi Dominici Gregis,” while “questions of lesser importance which arise on a daily basis or from time to time” are handled by the “particular congregation.”
The document says the cardinals draw lots to determine the three cardinals who will assist the camerlengo by serving three-day terms as members of the “particular congregation.” However, Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution on the Roman Curia, “Praedicate Evangelium,” said that “one of these is the Cardinal Coordinator of the Council for the Economy,” currently German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising.
The general congregation meets under the leadership of the dean, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, and besides setting the date for the funeral and for the conclave, it is responsible for:
• Ensuring that a commission of their members prepares the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican residence where Pope Francis lived, for the cardinals during the conclave. Rooms will be assigned by lot.
• Preparing the Sistine Chapel for the election of a new pope.
• Assigning two clerics “known for their sound doctrine, wisdom and moral authority” to prepare meditations for the cardinals on problems the church faces and on choosing the next pope.
• Approving the expenditures associated with the death of the pope.
• Arranging for the destruction of the papal fisherman’s ring and the lead seal that had marked Pope
Francis’ letters.
CNS PHOTO/LOLA GOMEZ
Among the many preparations that must be made is the arranging for the destruction of the papal fisherman’s ring, above, and the lead seal that had marked Pope Francis’ letters.
CNS PHOTO/VATICAN MEDIA
Much is to be done after the death of a pope. The cardinals must determine when the conclave to elect a new pope should begin — at least 15 days from the death or resignation of the pope and no more than 20 days since the vacancy of the papacy. The Sistine Chapel must also be prepared for the conclave.
Final homily: ‘Look for Him everywhere’
Editor’s note: The following is the homily of Pope Francis read by Cardinal Angelo Comastri at Easter Sunday Mass on April 20.
Mary Magdalene, seeing that the stone of the tomb had been rolled away, ran to tell Peter and John. After receiving the shocking news, the two disciples also went out and — as the Gospel says — “the two were running together” (Jn 20:4). The main figures of the Easter narratives all ran! On the one hand, “running” could express the concern that the Lord’s body had been taken away; but, on the other hand, the haste of Mary Magdalene, Peter and John expresses the desire, the yearning of the heart, the inner attitude of those who set out to search for Jesus. He, in fact, has risen from the dead and therefore is no longer in the tomb. We must look for him elsewhere.
This is the message of Easter: We must look for him elsewhere. Christ is risen, he is alive! He is no longer a prisoner of death, he is no longer wrapped in the shroud, and therefore we cannot confine him to a fairy tale, we cannot make him a hero of the ancient world, or think of him as a statue in a museum! On the contrary, we must look for him and this is why we cannot remain stationary. We must take action, set out to look for him: Look for him in life, look for him in the faces of our brothers and sisters, look for him in everyday business, look for him everywhere except in the tomb.
We must look for him without ceasing. Because if he has risen from the dead, then he is present everywhere, he dwells among us, he hides himself and reveals himself even today in the sisters and brothers we meet along the way, in the most ordinary and unpredictable situations of our lives. He is alive and is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us.
For this reason, our Easter faith, which opens us to the encounter with the risen Lord and prepares us to welcome him into our lives, is anything but a complacent settling into some sort of “religious reassurance.” On the contrary, Easter spurs us to action, to run like Mary Magdalene and the disciples; it invites us to have eyes that can “see beyond,” to perceive Jesus, the one who lives, as the God who reveals himself and makes himself present even today, who speaks to us, goes before us, surprises us. Like Mary Magdalene, every day we can experience losing the Lord, but every day we can also run to look for him again, with the certainty that he will allow himself to be found and will fill us with the light of his resurrection.
Brothers and sisters, this is the greatest hope of our life: We can live this poor, fragile and wounded existence clinging to Christ, because he has conquered death, he conquers our darkness and he will conquer the shadows of the world, to make us
live with him in joy, forever. This is the goal towards which we press on, as the Apostle Paul says, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead (cf. Phil 3:1214). Like Mary Magdalene, Peter and John, we hasten to meet Christ.
The Jubilee invites us to renew the gift of hope within us, to surrender our sufferings and our concerns to hope, to share it with those whom we meet along our journey and to entrust to hope the future of our lives and the destiny of the human family. And so we cannot settle for the fleeting things of this world or give in to sadness; we must run, filled with joy. Let us run towards
Jesus, let us rediscover the inestimable grace of being his friends. Let us allow his word of life and truth to shine in our life. As the great theologian Henri de Lubac said, “It should be enough to understand this: Christianity is Christ. No, truly, there is nothing else but this. In Christ, we have everything” (“Les responsabilités doctrinales des catholiques dans le monde d’aujourd’hui,” Paris 2010, 276).
And this “everything” that is the risen Christ opens our life to hope. He is alive, he still wants to renew our life today. To him, conqueror of sin and death, we want to say:
“Lord, on this feast day we ask
you for this gift: that we too may be made new, so as to experience this eternal newness. Cleanse us, O God, from the sad dust of habit, tiredness and indifference; give us the joy of waking every morning with wonder, with eyes ready to see the new colors of this morning, unique and unlike any other. . . . Everything is new, Lord, and nothing is the same, nothing is old” (A. Zarri, “Quasi una preghiera”).
Sisters, brothers, in the wonder of the Easter faith, carrying in our hearts every expectation of peace and liberation, we can say: With You, O Lord, everything is new. With you, everything begins again.
