Pope Leo XIV presided at a Requiem Mass for the late Pope Francis and Cardinals and Bishops who have died over the course of the past year, praying that their souls \u201cmight be washed from every stain\u201d and that they may \u201cshine like stars in the sky.\u201d
\nBy Christopher Wells<\/p>\n
At the traditional Mass offered in suffrage for the souls of Cardinals and Bishops who have died in the course of the past year, Pope Leo XIV prayed that \u201ctheir souls might be washed from every stain\u201d and that they might \u201cshine like stars in the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the same time, he expressed his hope that \u201ctheir spiritual encouragement might reach us, still pilgrims on earth, in the silence of prayer: \u2018Hope in God: for I shall again praise Him, my help and my God.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u2018flavour\u2019 of Christian hope
\nIn particular, Pope Leo prayed \u201cwith great affection for the elect soul of Pope Francis, who died after opening the Holy Door and imparting the Easter Blessing to Rome and the whole world.\u201d The Jubilee Year, he said, gives this Mass \u201ca distinctive flavour, the flavour of Christian hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Holy Father highlighted the message of the Gospel account of the disciples of Emmaus, whose encounter with the Risen Christ offers \u201ca vivid representation of the pilgrimage of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tragedy of violent death
\nTheir encounter began with the experience of the \u201cviolent death\u201d of Jesus, the kind of death suffered by so many innocent \u201clittle ones\u201d in our day, deaths that are tragic and frightening because they are \u201cdisfigured by sin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot and must not say \u2018laudato s\u00ed\u2019\u201d praise be to you \u201cfor this death, because God the Father does not desire it, and He sent his Son into the world to free us from it,\u201d the Pope said.<\/p>\n
Jesus rekindles faith and hopes in our hearts
\nRather, Jesus suffered precisely \u201cto enter into His glory and give us eternal life.\u201d He alone, the Pope said, \u201ccan take this corrupt death upon Himself and within Himself without being corrupted by it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When we confess that \u201cHe alone has the words of eternal life\u201d we acknowledge that His words \u201chave the power to rekindle faith and hope in our hearts.\u201d This hope, the Holy Father said, \u201cis no longer the hope [the disciples] had before and had lost,\u201d but is instead \u201ca new reality, a gift, a grace of the Risen One: it is the Easter hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
Easter hope transforms death
\nWith that Easter hope, Pope Leo continued, we can sing in the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, \u201cPraise be to you, my Lord, for our sister bodily death.\u201d \u201cThe love of Christ crucified and risen has transfigured death: from an enemy, it has made it a sister.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although we are saddened by the death of loved ones, and even scandalized at the death of innocents \u201ccarried off by illness, or worse, by human violence,\u201d Christians nonetheless continue to hope, \u201cbecause even the most tragic death cannot prevent our Lord from welcoming our soul into His arms and transforming our mortal bodies, even the most disfigured, into the image of His glorious body.\u201d<\/p>\n
Witnesses and teachers of Paschal hope
\nIt is precisely this \u201cnew Paschal hope,\u201d Pope Leo said, that Pope Francis, as well as the Cardinals and Bishops who have died throughout the year, \u201clived, witnessed, and taught.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Lord called them and appointed them shepherds in His Church,\u201d the Pope said, and through their ministry,\u201d they have guided \u201cthe righteous\u2026 on the path of the Gospel with the wisdom that comes from Christ, who has become for us wisdom, justice, sanctification, and redemption.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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