Easter Message Urbi et Orbi of His Holiness Benedict XVI
Dear Brothers and Sisters throughout the world, Men and women of good will!
Christ
is risen! Peace to you! Today we celebrate the great mystery, the foundation of Christian
faith and hope: Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One, has risen from the dead on the
third day according to the Scriptures. We listen today with renewed emotion to the
announcement proclaimed by the angels on the dawn of the first day after the Sabbath,
to Mary of Magdala and to the women at the sepulchre: “Why do you search among the
dead for one who is alive? He is not here, he is risen!” (Lk 24:5-6).
It
is not difficult to imagine the feelings of these women at that moment: feelings of
sadness and dismay at the death of their Lord, feelings of disbelief and amazement
before a fact too astonishing to be true. But the tomb was open and empty: the body
was no longer there. Peter and John, having been informed of this by the women, ran
to the sepulchre and found that they were right. The faith of the Apostles in Jesus,
the expected Messiah, had been submitted to a severe trial by the scandal of the cross.
At his arrest, his condemnation and death, they were dispersed. Now they are together
again, perplexed and bewildered. But the Risen One himself comes in response to their
thirst for greater certainty. This encounter was not a dream or an illusion or a
subjective imagination; it was a real experience, even if unexpected, and all the
more striking for that reason. “Jesus came and stood among them and said to them,
‘peace be with you!’” (Jn 20:19).
At these words their faith, which
was almost spent within them, was re-kindled. The Apostles told Thomas who had been
absent from that first extraordinary encounter: Yes, the Lord has fulfilled all that
he foretold; he is truly risen and we have seen and touched him! Thomas however remained
doubtful and perplexed. When Jesus came for a second time, eight days later in the
Upper Room, he said to him: “put your finger here and see my hands; and put out your
hand and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing!” The Apostle’s
response is a moving profession of faith: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:27-28).
“My
Lord and my God!” We too renew that profession of faith of Thomas. I have chosen
these words for my Easter greetings this year, because humanity today expects from
Christians a renewed witness to the resurrection of Christ; it needs to encounter
him and to know him as true God and true man. If we can recognize in this Apostle
the doubts and uncertainties of so many Christians today, the fears and disappointments
of many of our contemporaries, with him we can also rediscover with renewed conviction,
faith in Christ dead and risen for us. This faith, handed down through the centuries
by the successors of the Apostles, continues on because the Risen Lord dies no more.
He lives in the Church and guides it firmly towards the fulfilment of his eternal
design of salvation.
We may all be tempted by the disbelief of Thomas. Suffering,
evil, injustice, death, especially when it strikes the innocent such as children who
are victims of war and terrorism, of sickness and hunger, does not all of this put
our faith to the test? Paradoxically the disbelief of Thomas is most valuable to
us in these cases because it helps to purify all false concepts of God and leads us
to discover his true face: the face of a God who, in Christ, has taken upon himself
the wounds of injured humanity. Thomas has received from the Lord, and has in turn
transmitted to the Church, the gift of a faith put to the test by the passion and
death of Jesus and confirmed by meeting him risen. His faith was almost dead but
was born again thanks to his touching the wounds of Christ, those wounds that the
Risen One did not hide but showed, and continues to point out to us in the trials
and sufferings of every human being.
“By his wounds you have been healed” (1
Pt 2:24). This is the message Peter addressed to the early converts. Those wounds
that, in the beginning were an obstacle for Thomas’s faith, being a sign of Jesus’
apparent failure, those same wounds have become in his encounter with the Risen One,
signs of a victorious love. These wounds that Christ has received for love of us
help us to understand who God is and to repeat: “My Lord and my God!” Only a God
who loves us to the extent of taking upon himself our wounds and our pain, especially
innocent suffering, is worthy of faith.
How many wounds, how much suffering
there is in the world! Natural calamities and human tragedies that cause innumerable
victims and enormous material destruction are not lacking. My thoughts go to recent
events in Madagascar, in the Solomon Islands, in Latin America and in other regions
of the world. I am thinking of the scourge of hunger, of incurable diseases, of terrorism
and kidnapping of people, of the thousand faces of violence which some people attempt
to justify in the name of religion, of contempt for life, of the violation of human
rights and the exploitation of persons. I look with apprehension at the conditions
prevailing in several regions of Africa. In Darfur and in the neighbouring countries
there is a catastrophic, and sadly to say underestimated, humanitarian situation.
In Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo the violence and looting of the
past weeks raises fears for the future of the Congolese democratic process and the
reconstruction of the country. In Somalia the renewed fighting has driven away the
prospect of peace and worsened a regional crisis, especially with regard to the displacement
of populations and the traffic of arms. Zimbabwe is in the grip of a grievous crisis
and for this reason the Bishops of that country in a recent document indicated prayer
and a shared commitment for the common good as the only way forward.
Likewise
the population of East Timor stands in need of reconciliation and peace as it prepares
to hold important elections. Elsewhere too, peace is sorely needed: in Sri Lanka
only a negotiated solution can put an end to the conflict that causes so much bloodshed;
Afghanistan is marked by growing unrest and instability; In the Middle East, besides
some signs of hope in the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian authority, nothing
positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population
flees. In Lebanon the paralysis of the country’s political institutions threatens
the role that the country is called to play in the Middle East and puts its future
seriously in jeopardy. Finally, I cannot forget the difficulties faced daily by the
Christian communities and the exodus of Christians from that blessed Land which is
the cradle of our faith. I affectionately renew to these populations the expression
of my spiritual closeness.
Dear Brothers and sisters, through the wounds of
the Risen Christ we can see the evils which afflict humanity with the eyes of hope.
In fact, by his rising the Lord has not taken away suffering and evil from the world
but has vanquished them at their roots by the superabundance of his grace. He has
countered the arrogance of evil with the supremacy of his love. He has left us the
love that does not fear death, as the way to peace and joy. “Even as I have loved
you – he said to his disciples before his death – so you must also love one another”
(cf. Jn 13:34).
Brothers and sisters in faith, who are listening to
me from every part of the world! Christ is risen and he is alive among us. It is
he who is the hope of a better future. As we say with Thomas: “My Lord and my God!”,
may we hear again in our hearts the beautiful yet demanding words of the Lord:
“If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be
also; if any one serves me, the Father will honour him” (Jn 12:26). United
to him and ready to offer our lives for our brothers (cf. 1 Jn 3:16), let us
become apostles of peace, messengers of a joy that does not fear pain – the joy of
the Resurrection. May Mary, Mother of the Risen Christ, obtain for us this Easter
gift. Happy Easter to you all.