At the Easter Vigil, the Pope called not to "believe in museums"

ROME.- Ban the "psychology of the sepulcher", not "bury the hope" or have "a museum faith", but reopen the risen Jesus. All this asked tonight

Francisco

at the seventh paschal vigil of his pontificate, the most important celebration of the liturgical year, which evokes the pbadage from death to the life of Jesus.

As tradition dictates, the rite began at 8:30 pm in the atrium of the Basilica of San Pedro, where the Pope blessed the fire and the paschal candle. The temple was then in the dark. The lit candle, carried in procession, with which the candles of the faithful were lit, symbolized the entrance of the light, Christ, of the world of the darkness of sin, of loneliness and of death.

In a ceremony in Latin, with beautiful songs, Francisco evoked in his sermon the pbadage of the Gospel in which women bring the aroma to the tomb of Jesus ", but they fear that the trip is vain, because a large stone seals the entrance to the sepulcher. "

However, women discover that their journey is not in vain, that it does not end with a funerary stone, because Jesus is risen. "Easter is the feast of the removal of stones, God removes the hardest stones against which fall the hopes and expectations: death, sin, fear, worldliness". Human history does not end before sepulchral stone, because today it discovers the "living stone", risen Jesus, "explained Francisco." We, as a Church, are grounded in him, and even when we are discouraged, when we are tempted to judge all that is based on our failures, he has just done all that is new, to dispel our disappointments, "he declared in front of more than 7,000 faithful of different nationalities, diplomats, bishops and cardinals.

In the homily he delivered in Italian, the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires acknowledged that hope is often hampered by the "stone of mistrust". "When the idea that everything goes wrong, we come to believe with resignation that death is stronger than life and we become cynical and mocking, carrying a harmful discouragement." Stone on stone, we build in ourselves monument of discontent, the sepulcher of hope, "he admitted." In complaining about life, we make life a slave of complaints and spiritual sick, and a kind of psychology from the tomb opens: everything stops there, without hope of going out alive, "he added." Yet this is the painful question of Easter: why seek life among the dead? The Lord does not live in resignation He is risen, he is not there, do not look for him where he will never be found: he is not God of the dead but of the living (Mt 22:32) N & # 39; do not bury the hope! "He asked.

Francisco also spoke of the astonishment of women when they found the stone of the tomb of Jesus removed. "They were" terrified "and with" their faces facing the ground. "They do not have the courage to face it, how often it happens to us as well: we prefer to stay within our limits, locked in our fears, we often do so because in the situation of closure and sadness, we are the protagonists, for it is easier to remain alone in the dark rooms of the heart than to open oneself to the Lord, and yet it only goes up, " he stressed.

He then quoted North American poet Emily Dickinson, who had written, "We do not know our true stature until we get up," to remind ourselves that "the Lord calls us to resurrect with His Word, to look up and believe. " that we are made for heaven, not for the earth, for the heights of life, not for the baseness of death. "Let us not look at the ground with fear, let us look at the risen Jesus: his eyes give us hope, because he tells us that we are always loved and that, despite all the disasters we can do, his love does not change. non-negotiable life: his love does not change, "he said." It is essential to return to a living love with the Lord, otherwise you have faith of a museum, not the faith of Easter, but Jesus is not a character from the past, it is a person who lives today; In the history books, you will find it in life, remember today, when Jesus called us, when he overcame our darkness, our resistance, our sins, how he touched our heart with his Word " , he added.

As is the tradition, in the second part of the liturgy, Francis baptized, confirmed and gave the first communion to 8 people from Italy, Albania, Ecuador Indonesia and Peru.

Tomorrow, after having celebrated the Mbad of the Resurrection in St. Peter's Square, Francis will send his paschal message and transmit from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica the traditional "urbi and orbi blessing" to the city and the world.