Pope Francis: Palm Sunday homily
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis delivered the homily at Mass on
Palm Sunday in St. Peter's Square. Below, please find the full text of his
prepared remarks.
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Today’s celebration can be said to be bittersweet. It
is joyful and sorrowful at the same time. We celebrate the Lord’s
entrance into Jerusalem to the cries of his disciples who acclaim him as
king. Yet we also solemnly proclaim the Gospel account of his
Passion. In this poignant contrast, our hearts experience in some small
measure what Jesus himself must have felt in his own heart that day, as he
rejoiced with his friends and wept over Jerusalem.
For thirty-two years now, the joyful aspect of this Sunday
has been enriched by the enthusiasm of young people, thanks to the celebration
of World Youth Day. This year, it is being celebrated at the diocesan
level, but here in Saint Peter’s Square it will be marked by the deeply moving
and evocative moment when the WYD cross is passed from the young people of
Kraków to those of Panama.
The Gospel we heard before the procession (cf. Mt 21:1-11)
describes Jesus as he comes down from the Mount of Olives on the back of a colt
that had never been ridden. It recounts the enthusiasm of the disciples
who acclaim the Master with cries of joy, and we can picture in our minds the
excitement of the children and young people of the city who joined in the
excitement. Jesus himself sees in this joyful welcome an inexorable force
willed by God. To the scandalized Pharisees he responds: “I tell you that
if these were silent, the stones would shout out” (Lk 19:40).
Yet Jesus who, in fulfilment of the Scriptures, enters the
holy city in this way is no misguided purveyor of illusions, no new age
prophet, no imposter. Rather, he is clearly a Messiah who comes in the
guise of a servant, the servant of God and of man, and goes to his
passion. He is the great “patient”, who suffers all the pain of humanity.
So as we joyfully acclaim our King, let us also think of the
sufferings that he will have to endure in this week. Let us think of the
slanders and insults, the snares and betrayals, the abandonment to an unjust
judgment, the blows, the lashes and the crown of thorns… And lastly, the
way of the cross leading to the crucifixion.
He had spoken clearly of this to his disciples: “If any want
to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and
follow me” (Mt 16:24). Jesus never promised honour and
success. The Gospels make this clear. He had always warned his
friends that this was to be his path, and that the final victory would be
achieved through the passion and the cross. All this holds true for us
too. Let us ask for the grace to follow Jesus faithfully, not in words
but in deeds. Let us also ask for the patience to carry our own cross,
not to refuse it or set it aside, but rather, in looking to him, to take it up
and to carry it daily.
This Jesus, who accepts the hosannas of the crowd, knows
full well that they will soon be followed by the cry: “Crucify him!” He
does not ask us to contemplate him only in pictures and photographs, or in the
videos that circulate on the internet. No. He is present in our many
brothers and sisters who today endure sufferings like his own: they suffer from
slave labour, from family tragedies, from diseases… They suffer from wars
and terrorism, from interests that are armed and ready to strike. Women
and men who are cheated, violated in their dignity, discarded… Jesus is
in them, in each of them, and, with marred features and broken voice, he asks
to be looked in the eye, to be acknowledged, to be loved.
It is not some other Jesus, but the same Jesus who entered
Jerusalem amid the waving of palm branches. It is the same Jesus who was
nailed to the cross and died between two criminals. We have no other Lord
but him: Jesus, the humble King of justice, mercy and peace.
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