HONG KONG (SE): On Sunday, April 18, on the Third Sunday of Easter, Pope Francis appeared at the window of the Apostolic Palace, overlooking St. Peter’s Square, to greet the faithful and recite the Regina Coeli prayer for the first time since March 14, two days after the Italian government imposed another Easter lockdown for the second year in a row.
Reflecting on the gospel reading from Luke (24:35-48), the pope noted that the Resurrected Jesus presented himself to his frightened and astonished disciples saying “peace to you,” showed them his wounds to prove it was him and not a ghost, and asked for food and ate in front of them to further convince them. “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have,” Jesus says.
The pope explained that three very tangible verbs characterise this Gospel passage: they are looking, touching and eating.
He said these are all verbs that reflect our individual and community life and describe actions that “can give joy to a true encounter with the living Jesus.”
Pope Francis called them verbs of love. “A mother and father look at their child; lovers look at each other; a good doctor looks at the patient carefully…. Looking is a first step against indifference, against the temptation to turn the face before the difficulties and sufferings of others,” he said.
Pope explained, that love calls for closeness, contact, the sharing of life. He said that “by inviting the disciples to touch him, to verify that he is not a spirit, Jesus indicates to them and to us that the relationship with him and with our brothers and sisters cannot remain “at a distance”, at the level of a gaze.”
The Good Samaritan he continued, “did not limit himself to looking at that man whom he found half dead along the road: he bent down, treated his wounds, loaded him on his mount and took him to the inn.”
It is the same with Jesus, the pope continued: “loving him means entering a vital, tangible communion with Him.
Pope said that eating “clearly expresses our humanity in its most natural indigence, that is, our need to nourish ourselves in order to live.”
He said that when we eat together with family or friends, it “also becomes an expression of love, of communion, of celebration.”
“How often the Gospels present us Jesus who experiences this convivial dimension! Even as the Risen One, with his disciples. To the point that the Eucharistic Banquet has become the emblematic sign of the Christian community,” he noted.
Pope Francis emphasised that “being Christian is not first of all a doctrine or a moral ideal; it is the living relationship with him, with the Risen Lord: we look at him, we touch him, we are nourished by Him and, transformed by his love, we look at, touch and nourish others as brothers and sisters.”
After he issued an appeal for peace in Eastern Ukraine and recalling a group of Italian Cistercian monks who were beatified on Saturday, Pope Francis expressed his joy to be back in St. Peter’s Square in the presence of the faithful.
“Thanks to God we can once again meet in this Square for our Sunday and Festive appointments,” he said. “I must tell you,” he continued: “I miss the square when I have to pray the Angelus in the Library… I am happy! Thanks to God and thanks to you all for your presence!”
