The Passover of Jesus, alive with hope

What place does Jesus' self-giving for us occupy in our lives? Do we consider it as an event of the past, with no connection to our present and our future? Christian faith assures us that it is something central, full of implications for our personal, social and ecclesial life. 

Preparing for the encounter with God and with others

The first of these Wednesdays(cfr. General Audience, 6-VIII-2025)the pope focused on the word prepare. "Where do you want us to go to prepare your Easter meal?"(Mk 14:12). In fact, everything had been prepared beforehand by Jesus: "..." (Mk 14:12).The Passover, which the disciples must prepare, is in fact already prepared in the heart of Jesus.". 

At the same time, he asks his friends to do their part: "Grace does not eliminate our freedom, but awakens it. God's gift does not annul our responsibility, but makes it fruitful.".

We too, therefore, have to prepare this meal. It is not only a question, warns Peter's successor, of the liturgy or the Eucharist (which means "thanksgiving"), but also of"....our willingness to enter into a gesture that is beyond us". 

"The Eucharist -Leo XIV observes is not only celebrated at the altar, but also in daily life, where it is possible to live everything as an offering and thanksgiving.". 

Hence the question: "We can then ask ourselves: what spaces in my life do I need to rearrange so that they are ready to welcome the Lord? What does it mean for me today to 'prepare'??".

Some suggestions: "Perhaps give up a pretense, stop waiting for the other to change, take the first step. Perhaps listen more, act less, or learn to trust what you are already willing to trust.".

Recognizing our vulnerability

In the midst of Jesus' most intimate meal with his own, the greatest betrayal is also revealed:"Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me: one who is eating with me." (Mk 14:18). "These are forceful words. Jesus does not pronounce them to condemn, but to show that love, when it is true, cannot do without truth.". 

Surprisingly, Jesus does not raise his voice or his finger to accuse the traitor. He leaves each one to question himself:"They began to get sad and asked him one after another, 'Will it be me?'" (Mk 14:19). On Wednesday, August 13, the Pope dwelt on this question, because, he pointed out, "is perhaps one of the most sincere questionswe can do to ourselves". And here's why: "The Gospel does not teach us to deny evil, but to recognize it as a painful occasion for rebirth.".

What follows may sound like a threat:"Woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed; it would be better for that man if he had not been born!" (Mk 14:21). But it is rather a cry of pain, of sincere and profound compassion. For God knows that, if we deny his love, we will be unfaithful to ourselves, we will lose the meaning of our life and we will exclude ourselves from salvation. But on the other hand, "if we recognize our limit, if we allow ourselves to be touched by the pain of Christ, then we can finally be born again.". 

Love that does not give up and forgives

During the Last Supper, Jesus offers the morsel to the one who is about to betray him. "It is not only a gesture of sharing, it is much more: it is the last attempt of love not to give up."(cf. General Audience August 20, 2025) Jesus continues to love: he washes the feet, wets the bread and offers it even to the one who will betray him.

The forgiveness that Jesus offers - the Bishop of Rome points out - is revealed here in all its power and manifests the face of hope: "...".It is not forgetfulness, it is not weakness. It is the capacity to let the other go free, loving him to the end. The love of Jesus does not deny the truth of pain, but does not allow evil to be the last word.". 

The Pope insists: "To forgive does not mean to deny evil, but to prevent it from generating more evil. It is not to say that nothing happened, but to do everything possible so that resentment does not decide the future.".

And he turns to us: "We also live through painful and exhausting nights. Nights of the soul, nights of disappointment, nights when someone has hurt or betrayed us. At such times, the temptation is to close ourselves off, to protect ourselves, to strike back. But the Lord shows us that there is hope, that there is always another way. (...) Today we ask for the grace to know how to forgive, even when we do not feel understood, even when we feel abandoned.". Thus we open ourselves to a greater love. 

Surrender for love

Then, Jesus freely and courageously faces his arrest in the Garden of Olives: "Who are you looking for?" (Jn 18:4). His love is full and mature, he does not fear rejection, but allows himself to be captured. "He is not the victim of an arrest, but the author of a gift. In this gesture is embodied a hope of salvation for our humanity: to know that, even in the darkest hour, one can remain free to love to the end." (General Audience, 27-VIII-2025).

The sacrifice of Jesus is a true act of love: "The sacrifice of Jesus is a true act of love.Jesus allows himself to be captured and imprisoned by the guards just so that he can set his disciples free."He knows well that to lose one's life for love is not a failure, but brings with it a mysterious fruitfulness (cf. Jn 12:24).

Thus he teaches us. "This is what true hope consists in: not in trying to avoid pain, but in believing that, even in the heart of the most unjust sufferings, the seed of a new life is hidden.".

Learning to receive

The Pope's catechesis on the words of Jesus at his crucifixion was particularly powerful: "I'm thirsty." (Jn 19:28), just before these others: "All things are accomplished" (19:30).

"The thirst of the Crucified -Leo XIV observes- is not only the physiological need of a broken body. It is also, and above all, the expression of a deep desire: that of love, of relationship, of communion." (General Audience, 3-IX-2025).

Hence a surprising teaching: "Love, to be true, must also learn to ask and not only to give. I thirst', says Jesus, and in this way he manifests his humanity and ours as well. None of us can be enough for ourselves. No one can save himself. Life is 'fulfilled' not when we are strong, but when we learn how to receive.". And it is then, precisely when everything is fulfilled. "Love has become needy, and that is precisely why it has carried out its work.".

Such is, the Bishop of Rome points out, the Christian paradox: "God saves not by doing, but by letting himself be done. Not by overcoming evil with force, but by accepting to the end the weakness of love.". 

From the cross, Jesus teaches that each of us is not fulfilled in power, but in trusting openness to others, if they were enemies. "Salvation does not lie in autonomy, but in humbly recognizing one's own needs and knowing how to express them freely.".

Attention, it seems to say Leo XIV also for educators and trainers, because this "feeling and recognizing our need" it cannot be imposed, but must be discovered freely each person (one can be gently helped to discover it), as a way of liberation of oneself towards God and others. "We are creatures made to give and receive love".

The cry of hope 

It is worth contemplating the fact that Jesus does not die in silence. "It does not go out slowly, like a light that is consumed, but leaves life with a cry: 'Jesus, giving a loud cry, expired'. (Mk 15:37). This cry contains everything: pain, abandonment, faith, offering. It is not only the voice of a body that gives up, but the last sign of a life that surrenders itself." (General Audience, 10-IX-2025).

His cry is preceded by these words: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"The words, which correspond to Psalm 22, express the silence, absence and abyss experienced by the Lord. "It is not -Leo XIV specifies of a crisis of faith, but of the last stage of a love that gives itself to the very depths. The cry of Jesus is not despair, but sincerity, truth taken to the limit, trust that resists even when everything is silent.".

In this Jubilee year, the cry of Jesus speaks to us of hope, not resignation. "You shout when you think someone can still hear you. You scream not out of desperation, but out of desire.". Specifically: "Jesus did not cry out 'against' the Father, but 'to' Him. Even in the silence, he was convinced that the Father was there. And so he showed us that our hope can cry out, even when all seems lost.".

We cry out when we are born (we arrive crying), when we suffer and also when we love, when we call out and invoke: "To shout is to say that we are here, that we do not want to go out in silence, that we still have something to offer.".

And this is the teaching of Jesus' cry for life's journey, instead of keeping everything inside and slowly wasting away (or falling into skepticism or cynicism).

The wisdom of waiting 

This is followed by the silence of Jesus in the tomb (cf. Jn 19:40-41): "A silence pregnant with meaning, like a mother's womb guarding her unborn child, but already alive."(General Audience17-IX-2025). 

He was buried in a garden, in a new tomb. As it happened at the beginning of the world, in paradise: God had planted a garden, now the door of this new garden is the closed tomb of Jesus. 

God had "rested"The book of Genesis (2:2) says, after creation. Not because he was tired, but because he had finished his work. Now the love of God has been shown again, fulfilled "to the end". 

Jesus rests at last

We find it hard to rest. But "knowing how to stop is a gesture of trust that we have to learn to fulfill". We have to discover that "life does not always depend on what we do, but also on how we know how to give up what we could have done.".

Jesus is silent in the tomb, like the seed awaiting its dawn. "Every time stopped can become a time of grace, if we offer it to God.".

Jesus, buried in the ground: "It is the God who lets us do, who waits, who withdraws to leave us freedom. He is the God who trusts us, even when everything seems to be finished.". 

We have to learn to let ourselves be embraced by the limit: "...".Sometimes we look for quick answers, immediate solutions. But God works in the depths, in the slow time of trust.". 

And all of this speaks to us again in this Jubilee of Hope: "The Jubilee of Hope is the Jubilee of Hope.True joy is born out of a lived expectation, out of patient faith, out of the hope that what has been lived in love will certainly rise to eternal life.".

Descends to announce light and life

Also on Wednesday, September 24, the Pope dwelt on Holy Saturday. Christ not only died for us, but also descended into the realm of the "hells" to bring the proclamation of the resurrection to all those who were under the dominion of death. Those "hells" do not refer only to the dead, but also to the one who lives under darkness (pain, loneliness, guilt) and above all, sin. "Christ -The Pope points out. He enters into all these dark realities to bear witness to the love of the Father. (...) He does so without clamor, on tiptoe, like someone who enters a hospital room to offer comfort and help.".

The Church Fathers describe it as an encounter between Christ and Adam to bring him back into the light, with authority, but also with gentleness. Not even our darkest nights or our deepest sins are obstacles for Christ. Descending for God is not a failure but the way to victory. No grave is too sealed for his love. God can always make, out of forgiveness, a new creation.