(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis celebrated the Easter Morning mass, with an assembly
of about 150,000 gathered in St. Peter’s Square. After the mass, as is custom, he
ascended to the loggia to pronounce his Easter message and to grant his blessing Urbi
et Orbi.
Below is a translation of the Pope’s message, which pleads for
peace in the most distressing places in our world today. ***************
Dear
Brothers and Sisters, Happy and Holy Easter!
The Church throughout the world
echoes the angel’s message to the women: “Do not be afraid! I know that you are looking
for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised… Come, see the
place where he lay” (Mt 28:5-6). “Do not be afraid! The Lord is Risen!
This
is the culmination of the Gospel, it is the Good News par excellence: Jesus, who was
crucified, is risen! This event is the basis of our faith and our hope. If Christ
were not raised, Christianity would lose its very meaning; the whole mission of the
Church would lose its impulse, for this is the point from which it first set out and
continues to set out ever anew. The message which Christians bring to the world is
this: Jesus, Love incarnate, died on the cross for our sins, but God the Father raised
him and made him the Lord of life and death. In Jesus, love has triumphed over hatred,
mercy over sinfulness, goodness over evil, truth over falsehood, life over death.
That
is why we tell everyone: “Come and see!” In every human situation, marked by frailty,
sin and death, the Good News is no mere matter of words, but a testimony to unconditional
and faithful love: it is about leaving ourselves behind and encountering others, being
close to those crushed by life’s troubles, sharing with the needy, standing at the
side of the sick, elderly and the outcast… “Come and see!”: Love is more powerful,
love gives life, love makes hope blossom in the wilderness.
With this joyful
certainty in our hearts, today we turn to you, risen Lord!
Help us to seek
you and to find you, to realize that we have a Father and are not orphans; that we
can love and adore you.
Help us to overcome the scourge of hunger, aggravated
by conflicts and by the immense wastefulness for which we are often responsible.
Enable
us to protect the vulnerable, especially children, women and the elderly, who are
at times exploited and abandoned.
Enable us to care for our brothers and sisters
struck by the Ebola epidemic in Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and to care
for those suffering from so many other diseases which are also spread through neglect
and dire poverty.
Comfort all those who cannot celebrate this Easter with their
loved ones because they have been unjustly torn from their affections, like the many
persons, priests and laity, who in various parts of the world have been kidnapped.
Comfort
those who have left their own lands to migrate to places offering hope for a better
future and the possibility of living their lives in dignity and, not infrequently,
of freely professing their faith.
We ask you, Lord Jesus, to put an end to
all war and every conflict, whether great or small, ancient or recent.
We pray
in a particular way for Syria, beloved Syria, that all those suffering the effects
of the conflict can receive needed humanitarian aid and that neither side will again
use deadly force, especially against the defenseless civil population, but instead
boldly negotiate the peace long awaited and long overdue!
Glorious Jesus, we
ask you to comfort the victims of fratricidal acts of violence in Iraq and to sustain
the hopes raised by the resumption of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
We
beg for an end to the conflicts in the Central African Republic and a halt to the
brutal terrorist attacks in parts of Nigeria and the acts of violence in South Sudan.
We
ask that hearts be turned to reconciliation and fraternal concord in Venezuela.
By
your resurrection, which this year we celebrate together with the Churches that follow
the Julian calendar, we ask you to enlighten and inspire the iniatives that promote
peace in Ukraine so that all those involved, with the support of the international
community, will make every effort to prevent violence and, in a spirit of unity and
dialogue, chart a path for the country’s future, and that they as brothers can shout
“Christos Voskrese!” [Christ is Risen!]
Lord, we pray to you for all the peoples
of the earth: you who have conquered death, grant us your life, grant us your peace!
Christus surrexit, venite et videte!