(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 03.22.2026).- Hundreds of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square at midday on Sunday, March 22, to pray the Angelus with the Pope. Before the prayer, the Holy Father delivered his traditional Sunday address, focusing on the Gospel reading used during Mass on that fifth and final Sunday of Lent. Below is the English translation:
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Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, the liturgy proclaims the Gospel of the raising of Lazarus (cf. Jn 11:1-45).
In the Lenten journey, this is a sign that speaks of Christ’s victory over death and of the gift of eternal life, which we receive through Baptism (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1265). Today Jesus also says to us, as he did to Martha, Lazarus’s sister: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (Jn 11:25-26).
The liturgy thus invites us, in light of the fact that Holy Week is drawing near, to relive the events of the Lord’s Passion — the entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the trial, the crucifixion, the burial — so that we may grasp their most authentic meaning and open ourselves to the gift of grace they contain.
These events are fulfilled in the risen Christ, who has conquered death and lives within us through Baptism, for our salvation and the fullness of life.
His grace illumines this world, which seems to constantly search for novelty and change, even at the cost of sacrificing important things — time, energy, values, affections — as if fame, material goods, entertainment and fleeting relationships could fill our hearts or make us immortal. It is a symptom of a longing for the infinite that each of us carries within us, a need that cannot be satisfied by passing things. Nothing finite can quench our inner thirst, for we are made for God, and we find no peace until we rest in him (cf. Confessions, I, 1.1).
The account of the resurrection of Lazarus, then, invites us to listen to this profound need and, with the power of the Holy Spirit, to free our hearts from habits, conditioning and ways of thinking which, like boulders, shut us away in the tomb of selfishness, materialism, violence and superficiality. In these places there is no life, but only confusion, dissatisfaction and loneliness.
Jesus also cries out to us: “Come out!” (Jn 11:43), urging us to emerge from these cramped spaces, renewed by his grace, to walk in the light of love, as new women and men, capable of hoping and loving, without calculation and without measure, according to the model of his infinite charity.
May the Virgin Mary help us to live these holy days with her faith, her trust and her fidelity, so that the glorious experience of encountering her risen Son may be renewed in us each day.
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