Pope Leo XIV prays for deceased prelates at Jubilee Mass, invoking Easter hope that transforms death into a sister.
Newsroom (03/11/2025, Gaudium Press ) In a solemn Mass offered for the souls of Cardinals and Bishops who died over the past year, Pope Leo XIV prayed that their souls “might be washed from every stain” and “shine like stars in the sky.” He also expressed hope that their “spiritual encouragement might reach us, still pilgrims on earth, in the silence of prayer,” quoting Psalm 42: “Hope in God: for I shall again praise Him, my help and my God.”
The Pope offered special prayers “with great affection for the elect soul of Pope Francis,” who passed away after opening the Holy Door and imparting the Easter Blessing to Rome and the world. Noting the ongoing Jubilee Year, Leo XIV described the liturgy as carrying “a distinctive flavour – the flavour of Christian hope.”
Gospel of Emmaus: A Pilgrimage of Hope
Drawing from the Gospel account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the Holy Father presented their encounter with the Risen Christ as “a vivid representation of the pilgrimage of hope.” The disciples’ journey, he said, began amid the “tragedy of violent death” – the crucifixion of Jesus, mirroring the fates of countless innocent “little ones” today, whose deaths are “disfigured by sin” and evoke terror.
“We cannot and must not say ‘laudato sí'” – praise be to you – “for this death,” Pope Leo XIV declared, “because God the Father does not desire it, and He sent his Son into the world to free us from it.”
Christ Rekindles Faith Amid Corruption
Jesus endured such death, the Pope explained, “to enter into His glory and give us eternal life.” He alone “can take this corrupt death upon Himself and within Himself without being corrupted by it.” Confessing that Christ “alone has the words of eternal life,” believers recognize His power “to rekindle faith and hope in our hearts.” This hope, Leo XIV emphasized, transcends the disciples’ earlier despair: it is “a new reality, a gift, a grace of the Risen One: it is the Easter hope.”
Transforming Death into a Sister
With Easter hope, Christians can echo St. Francis of Assisi: “Praise be to you, my Lord, for our sister bodily death.” Christ’s crucified and risen love, the Pope said, “has transfigured death: from an enemy, it has made it a sister.”
Though grief and scandal accompany the loss of loved ones – especially innocents claimed by illness or “human violence” – hope endures. “Even the most tragic death cannot prevent our Lord from welcoming our soul into His arms,” Leo XIV assured, “and transforming our mortal bodies, even the most disfigured, into the image of His glorious body.”
Deceased Shepherds as Witnesses of Paschal Hope
Pope Francis and the departed Cardinals and Bishops, the Holy Father concluded, “lived, witnessed, and taught” this “new Paschal hope.” Appointed as shepherds, they guided the faithful “on the path of the Gospel with the wisdom that comes from Christ, Who has become for us wisdom, justice, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican News
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