Pope’s Easter message: Christ is truly risen, hope is reborn for all!

After the Easter morning Mass in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis presided over the Mass of Easter Day to give his traditional Urbi et Orbi message.

More than 100,000 pilgrims filled the square and surrounding avenues.

Pope Francis, who had recently spent a short stay in hospital being treated for bronchitis, began by proclaiming the joyous message of this day, “Christ is risen; he is truly risen!”. “That word ‘truly’ reminds us that our hope is not an illusion, but the truth!” he said.

“And that, in the wake of Easter, humanity’s journey, now marked by hope, advances all the more readily.”

He declared that in Jesus, the passage of humanity from death to life, sin to grace, fear to confidence and desolation to communion has been made, wishing everyone a Happy Easter.

In particular, he greeted the sick, the poor, the elderly and all those suffering, praying they may experience the passage from affliction to consolation. you not recant, knowing that in their fear of who you claimed to be, and the message of love, repentance and of rebirth in the Spirit which you preached, they were seeking any reason to put you to death?

“Pilate, having washed his hands of any responsibility for you, then handed you over to be stripped and then scourged. Truly God yet truly man, how could you bear the agony as the bones of the scourge bit into your flesh? Yet you bore it humbly. Why?

“Then carrying your own cross, walking the path to Calvary, to be mocked and jeered at by those who had so recently hailed you as their saviour. Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! How hollow was that praise now? No palms now to be laid at your feet, merely the stones that scarred your flesh. How could you bear it?

“And then to meet your blessed mother, the grief for her beloved son written in the tears that streamed down her face, in the sobs that wracked her frail body.”

“Oh, my son, my son, what have they done to you”?

“Why would you do this? And so, to the final indignity. To face your death, nailed to the cross like a common criminal, deserted by so many whom you loved.”

“If he is the Son of God, let him save himself, let him come down from the cross.”

“Oh sweet Jesus, why did you do this, why did you willingly bear such suffering?”

Jesus then reached out his hands and gently touched me, the hands of a carpenter, hands that still bore the scars of his cross. He then raised his head and looking at me with eyes that knew the very depths of my soul, eyes that could see my whole life laid open before him, he finally spoke.

“My precious, precious child. I did it for you.”