Pope Francis celebrated this April 2 on Palm Sunday in Saint Peter’s Square, from where he pointed out that Christ gave himself to the extreme, even experiencing the abandonment of God so that in the most difficult moments people do not lose hope.
The Pontiff presided over the beginning of Holy Week 2023 this Sunday, the day after he was discharged from the Agostino Gemelli Hospital where he was treated by doctors for a respiratory infection.
The celebration was preceded by the procession of Palm Sunday palms, carried by bishops, priests, and religious and lay people around the obelisk in Saint Peter’s Square to commemorate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.
Pope Francis arrived by popemobile at the obelisk. After the ceremony in which the palms were blessed, the procession of bishops and priests, together with the Holy Father, went to the atrium of the Vatican basilica for the Mass with which Holy Week begins.
In his homily, the Pontiff reflected on the word of Christ on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”, recalling that “Jesus’ suffering was great”, since he experienced not only physical pain, but also the spiritual, with the betrayal of Judas, the denials of Peter, the condemnations and public ridicule, and the abandonment of the disciples.
But even more, the Pope indicated, “in the most tragic hour, Jesus experiences the abandonment of God.” “The Lord comes to suffer out of love for us, which is difficult even for us to understand. He sees the closed sky, he experiences the bitter frontier of living, the shipwreck of existence, and the collapse of all certainty. He shouts the ‘why’ of the ‘whys’”, he pointed out, before the 60,000 faithful gathered in Saint Peter’s Square.
Pope Francis explained that “the verb ‘abandon’ in the Bible is strong; it appears in moments of extreme pain: in failed, denied and betrayed love; in rejected and aborted children; in situations of repudiation, widowhood and orphanhood; in exhausted marriages, in exclusions that deprive of social ties, in the oppression of injustice and the loneliness of illness”.
“Christ took all this to the cross, taking upon himself the sin of the world. And at the culminating moment, the only-begotten and beloved Son experienced the situation that was most alien to him: remoteness from God,” he noted.
The Holy Father affirmed that Christ reached that extreme for each of human being. “Brothers and sisters, all this is not a show. Each one, hearing the abandonment of Jesus, each of us says: for me. This abandonment is the price he has paid for me,” he expressed.
The Pontiff assured the faithful that Jesus “experienced abandonment so as not to leave us hostage to desolation and to be by our side forever”, so that when someone feels “lost in a blind alley”, they can have hope.
“The Lord saves us like this, from within our ‘why’. From there he displays the hope that he does not disappoint”, he reiterated.
In this sense, Pope Francis pointed out that while on the cross, Jesus, “even though he feels completely abandoned, does not give in to despair – this is the limit – but rather prays and entrusts himself” to the Father.