VATICAN - THE POPE’S TEACHING AT GENERAL AUDIENCE: “JESUS IS THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB WITHOUT STAIN WHOSE PRECIOUS BLOOD WAS SHED FOR OUR RANSOM. HE IS THE JUST ONE WHO OFFERS HIMSELF FOR THE UNJUST IN ORDER TO LEAD THEM BACK TO GOD.”

Vatican City (Fides Service) – After the festivities of Christmas, for his teaching at the general audience on January 14, Pope John Paul II resumed his reflection on the Liturgy of Vespers commenting the Canticle known as the “The voluntary passion of Christ, servant of God” (cfr 1 Pt 2,21-24). “As we heard last Sunday, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, from the beginning of his public life Jesus reveals that he is the in whom the Father is well pleased – the Pope said – and the true Referring to the Letter of Saint Peter from which the Canticle is drawn the Pope gave a profile of Christ: “He appears to us as a model to contemplate and imitate, the «programme», as it is said in the original Greek, to achieve, the example to follow without hesitation, conforming ourselves to his choices... and the steps of the divine Master start out along a steep and difficult path just as we read in the Gospel ”.
The story of the Passion describes the attitude of Jesus “in that terrible and magnificent vicissitude ”... “Peter’s hymn gives a wonderful summary of the passion of Christ modulated on the words and images which Isaiah applies to the figure of the Suffering Servant”. It begins with a twofold assertion of his absolute innocence, his behaviour is one of meekness and gentleness, “his has total and perfect confidence in divine justice which guides history towards the triumph of the innocent”, the climax of the story “emphasises the salvific value of the supreme act of Christ’s self-giving.”: “Christ bore «in his body» «on the wood», that is on the cross, «our sins», in order to remove them. In this way we too, liberated from the old man with his evil and misery, can «live for justice», that is in holiness.”
The Holy Father ended his teaching by quoting the last part of the Canticle - «by his wounds we were cured» - which “stresses the salvific value of Christ’s suffering expressed with the words used by Isaiah to express the salvific fecundity of pain suffered by the Servant of the Lord.” (S.L.) (Fides Service 14/1/2004 – lines 25; words 349)