On Palm Sunday, April 9, 2017, Pope Francis exhorted to contemplate Jesus “not only in paintings, or photographs, or even in videos” but “in many of our brothers and sisters . . . who are suffering.” “Jesus is in them, in each of them, and with a disfigured face, with a broken voice, He asks to be looked at, to be recognized, to be loved,” he stressed during the Mass he celebrated in St. Peter’s Square, in the presence of 50 000 pilgrims and visitors.
On opening Holy Week, the Pontiff emphasized that Jesus “never promised honors and success. (. . .) He always warned His friends that His way was such, and that the final victory would pass by the Passion and Cross.”
“And this is also true for us,” he added. “To follow Jesus faithfully, let us ask for the grace to do so not by words but by facts, and to have the patience to endure our cross: not to reject it, not to reject but, looking at Jesus, to accept and carry it, day after day.”
“We have no other Lord outside of him: Jesus, humble King of justice, of mercy and of peace,” continued Pope Francis. “The Servant of God and of man who goes to the Passion; He is the great Patient of human sorrow.”
During the celebration, which also marked the 32nd World Youth Day, held at the diocesan level, the young people of Krakow, Poland, place of the 2016 international WYD, were to hand over the WYD Cross to the young people of Panama, place of the 2019 WYD.
(Translation: Virginia Forrester)
