VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI opens Holy Week with Palm Sunday procession and Mass: “May the Lord help us to open the door of our heart, the door of the world so that in His Son the living God may come in our day, in our life.”

Monday, 2 April 2007

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “In the Palm Sunday procession we join the crowds of joyful disciples who accompanied the Lord on his entrance into Jerusalem. Like them we greatly praise the Lord for all the wonders we have seen”. These were the opening words of Pope Benedict XVI’s homily during Mass on April 1 Palm Sunday in St Peter’s Square. In procession with young people, clergy, bishops and cardinals the Pope went to the centre of the square where he blessed the palms and olive branches and moved up the steps to the Basilica for the Mass. In the square were thousands of young people from all over the world, many from the diocese of Rome, who had come to celebrate the 22nd World Youth Day with the Pope.
“We too have seen and continue to see the wonders worked by Christ - the Pope said in the homily -, how he leads men and women to renounce the commodities of life and put themselves totally at the service of the suffering; how He gives men and women the courage to oppose violence and mistruth, to make space in the world for truth; how in secret He leads men and women to do good to others, prompts reconciliation where there is hatred, creates peace where there is enmity”.
Explaining the sense of a procession, the Pope said “it is first of all an act of joyful witness to Jesus Christ in whom God has made his Face visible and through whom God has opened his heart to us … the Palm Sunday procession is also a procession for Christ the King: we profess the royalty of Jesus Christ, we recognised Jesus as the Son of David, the true Solomon, the King of peace and justice. To recognise Him as king means to accept Him as the One who shows the way, whom we trust, whom we follow… for us the Palm Sunday procession today - as then for the disciples - is first of all an expression of joy, because we know Jesus, he allows us to be His friends and he gives us the key to life. This initial joy is also an expression of our "yes" to Jesus and our willingness to follow Him wherever he leads us.”
If the procession is also a symbolic representation of what we call "discipleship", it is right to ask ourselves what it means to follow Christ. The Pope said for the first disciples the meaning was immediate and simple: “it meant leaving their profession, their business, their life to go with Jesus... discipleship was exterior but at the same time also most intimate. The exterior aspect was walking behind Jesus on his pilgrimage across Palestine; intimately it meant giving new direction to life, points of reference were no longer business, work which supplied a livelihood, one’s personal will, but rather abandoning oneself entirely to the will of the Other”. This attitudes indicates the meaning of discipleship in our day: “it is a question of changing life from within. It means I must no longer be closed in on myself, considering my self-realisation the principal purpose of my life.. It means making a fundamental decision to no longer consider utility, profit, career, success as the ultimate goals of life, but to recognise instead truth and love as the authentic criteria. It is a question of choosing either to live for myself alone or to give myself for something far greater.”
Palm Sunday liturgy includes Psalm 24 [23], which “interprets the inward ascension of which the exterior going up is the image and explains once again what it means to ‘go up’ with Christ”. The question "who will go up the mount of the Lord?" is answered with two essential conditions. “Those who go up and truly wish to go up high, to reach authentic height, must be people who think about God. People in search of God, people looking for his Face”. The Pope urged those present not to let themselves be carried here and there in life, not to be content with what others think and do. The second condition for going up is to have innocent hands and a pure heart. “Innocent hands - the Pope said - are hands not used for acts of violence, hands not sullied with corruption and bribes … a pure heart is sincere, not tainted by mistruth and hypocrisy. A pure heart is transparent like water from the source, it is never double-faced. A pure heart does not alienate itself with the intoxication of pleasure; its love is true, not only a passing moment of passion.”
The psalm closes with a liturgical entrance into the temple: with the wood of His cross, with the power of His love Jesus gives himself, “from the side of the world He knocks on the door of God; from the side of a world which could not find the way to God. With his cross Jesus has opened wide the door to God, the door between God and mankind. Now the door is open. But with his cross the Lord knocks also the other way: he knocks on the doors of the world, on the doors of our hearts, which are often closed to God and so tightly”. The Pope concluded: “May the Lord help us to open the door of our heart, the door of the world so that in His Son the living God may come in our day, in our life.”
At the end of the Mass the Pope greeted visitors in different languages and wished everyone a “Holy Week rich in spiritual fruits”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 2/4/2007 - righe 67, parole 1.049)


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