HOLY WEEK 2020

Dear Reader, I would like to share with you on this occasion, a small compilation of homilies recently given in liturgical celebrations carried out by Pope Francis, with a very particular form of participation, on these special days, and which in one way or another is they stayed in our minds and took refuge in the heart.

BLESSING URBI ET ORBI, BY COVID-19, MARCH 27

"At dusk" (Mk 4.35). Thus begins the Gospel that we have heard. For a few weeks now it seems that everything has darkened. Dense darkness has covered our squares, streets and cities; they took over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence, and a desolate emptiness that paralyzes everything in its path: it palpitates in the air, it feels in the gestures, looks at it.

We find ourselves scared and lost. Like the Gospel Disciples, we were struck by an unexpected and raging storm. We realized that we were in the same boat, all fragile and disoriented; but, at the same time, important and necessary, all called to row together, all in need of comforting each other… It is easy to identify with this story, the difficult thing is to understand the attitude of Jesus. While the Disciples were logically alarmed and desperate, He remained aft, in the part of the boat that first sinks .... He slept calm, trusting in the Father- It is the only time in the Gospel that Jesus appears sleeping.

Reflection of Pope Francis at the moment of Prayer of the Eucharistic Blessing Urbi et Orbi.

HOLY THURSDAY, APRIL 9

Today I would like to be close to the Priests, to all Priests, from the newly ordained to the Pope. We are all Priests… drunk to celebrate the Eucharist, anointed to serve. However, I cannot let this Mass pass without remembering the Priests, Priests who offer their lives for the Lord, Priests who are Servants. In these days more than sixty have died here, in Italy, caring for the sick in hospitals, together with doctors, nurses, nurses… They are the “next door saints”, Priests who gave their lives serving…. Today I carry you in my heart, and I take you to the altar.

Slandered priests, it often happens today, that they cannot go out on the street because they are told ugly things, because of the drama that we have experienced with the discovery of the evil actions of Priests. Some told me that they could not leave the house with the clergyman because they insulted them; and they followed.

Sinful priests, who along with sinful Bishops and the sinful Pope do not forget to ask for forgiveness. And they learn to forgive because they know they need to ask for forgiveness and forgive. We are all sinners. Priests who suffer crises, who do not know what to do, are in the dark ...

Today all of you, Brother Priests, are with me at the altar, you consecrated.

Homily of Pope Francis St. Peter's Basilica Holy Thursday.

HOLY FRIDAY, APRIL 10

"What we just heard is the account of the objectively greatest evil ever committed on earth."

"The Coronavirus pandemic has awakened us abruptly from the greatest danger that individuals and humanity have always faced: that of the delirium of Omnipotence."

“God participates in our pain to overcome it. He is our ally, not the virus. "

“He has also given nature a kind of freedom, qualitatively different, no doubt, from the moral freedom of man, but always a form of freedom. Freedom to evolve according to its development laws ”.

Words of Father Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher of the Pontifical House, in the homily for the celebration of the Passion of the Lord, presided over by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Basilica. Holy Friday.

RESURRETION SUNDAY, APRIL 12. BLESSING URBI ET ORBI

This good news has been lit like a new flame in the night, in the night of a world that was already facing crucial challenges and that is now overwhelmed by the pandemic, which is putting our great human family to a severe test. Tonight the voice of the Church resounds: "My love and my hope was truly resurrected" (Easter sequence).

It is another "contagion", which is transmitted from heart to heart, because every human heart awaits this Good News ... It is not a magic formula that makes problems disappear. No, that is not the Resurrection of Christ, but the victory of love over the root of evil, a victory that does not "go over", of suffering and death, but pierces them, opening a path in the abyss, transforming evil for good, a distinctive sign of the power of God.

Easter message from Pope Francis, prior to the Urbi et Orbi blessing. From the Vatican Basilica