Vatican City, 1 April 2015 (VIS) –
Pope Francis dedicated the catechesis of this Wednesday's general
audience to the Easter Triduum, the culmination of the liturgical
year, “and of our life as Christians”, which begins tomorrow,
Holy Thursday, with the celebration of the Last Supper, in which
Jesus offers His Body and Blood to the Father, in the Bread and Wine,
and instructs us to perpetuate this offering in His memory.
“The Gospel of this ceremony,
recalling the washing of the feet, expresses the same meaning of the
Eucharist from another perspective”, said the Holy Father to the
faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square. “Jesus, like a servant,
washes the feet of Simon Peter ad the other eleven disciples. With
this prophetic gesture he expresses the meaning of His life and His
passion, as service to God and to His brothers. … This also happens
in our Baptism, when the grace of God cleanses us of sin and we are
clothed in Christ. This happens every time we commemorate the Lord in
the Eucharist: we make communion with Christ the Servant to obey His
commandment, that of loving each other as He has loved us. If we
partake in holy Communion without being sincerely willing to wash
each other's feet, we do not recognise the Body of the Lord”.
In the liturgy of Good Friday we
consider the mystery of the death of Christ and we worship the Cross.
“In the final moments of life, before delivering his spirit to the
Father, Christ said, 'It is finished'. … This means that the work
of salvation is complete, that all the Scriptures find their
fulfilment in the love of Christ, the sacrificial lamb. Jesus, by His
sacrifice, transformed the greatest wickedness into the greatest
love”.
The Pontiff commented that throughout
the centuries men and women have, by the witness of their existence,
“reflected a ray of this perfect, full, uncontaminated love”,
offering the example of a heroic witness of our times, the Italian
priest and missionary in Turkey Andrea Santoro, who shortly before
being murdered in the church of Trebisonda on 5 February 2006, wrote:
“I am here to live among these people and to let Jesus do so,
lending Him my flesh. … We become capable of salvation only by
offering our own flesh. The evil of the world must be borne and pain
shared, absorbed in one's own flesh unto the end, as Jesus did”.
“This example, and many others, sustain us in offering our own life
as a gift of love to our brethren, in imitation of Jesus”,
exclaimed the Pope.
On Holy Saturday, “the Church
contemplates Christ's 'repose' in the tomb after the victorious
battle of the Cross. On Holy Saturday the Church once again
identifies with Mary: all our faith is encompassed in her, the first
and perfect disciple, the first and perfect believer. In the darkness
that enshrouds Creation, she alone keeps the flame of faith alight,
hoping against all hope in Jesus' Resurrection”.
On the great Easter Vigil, “we
celebrate the Risen Christ as the centre and end of the cosmos and of
history; we stay awake to await His return, when Easter will manifest
itself fully. At times, the darkness of night seems to penetrate the
soul; at times we think, 'there is no longer anything to be done',
and the heart no longer finds the strength to love. … But it is
precisely in that darkness that Christ lights the flame of God's
love: a gleam that breaks through the darkness, presage of a new
beginning. The stone of suffering is overturned, making space for
hope. This is the great mystery of Easter! On this holy night the
Church gives to us the light of the Resurrection, so that we no
longer have inside us the regret of saying 'by now...', but rather
the hope of one who opens up to a present full of the future: Christ
has defeated death, and we are with Him. Our life does not end at the
tombstone!”.
“During these days of the Holy
Triduum, let us limit ourselves to commemorating the Lord's passion,
but let us instead enter into the mystery, making His feelings and
His attitudes our own, as the Apostle Paul tells us: 'Have this mind
among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus'. Then ours will be
a happy Easter”.
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