As I shared with you a few snippets from the reflections read and prayed during the Holy Way of the Cross Pope Francis led on Good Friday, I would like to share with you few thoughts selected from the homily the Pope delivered yesterday during the Easter Vigil.
The message which impressed me most is his interpretation of Jesus’ request to his disciples through the women who were the first witnesses of the Resurrection:
"Do not fear; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me" (Mt 25. v. 10).
This message was given within an atmosphere of fear that enveloped all the believers.
Why did Jesus ask them to go to Galilee? The Pope’s answer is quite innovative.
“Galilee is the place where they were first called, where everything began!” reminds us the Pope. It was in Galilee that the Apostles were called; where the fishers of fish were turned into the fishers of men and women.
The Pope explains the meaning of Jesus’ invitation.
“To return to Galilee means to re-read everything on the basis of the cross and its victory. To re-read everything – Jesus’ preaching, his miracles, the new community, the excitement and the defections, even the betrayal – to re-read everything starting from the end, which is a new beginning, from this supreme act of love.”
Then Pope Francis shows how the invitation given to the Apostles is an invitation that is valid for Christians today as much as it was relevant the first time it was made to the Apostles.
“For each of us, too, there is a "Galilee" at the origin of our journey with Jesus. ‘To go to Galilee’ means something beautiful, it means rediscovering our baptism as a living fountainhead, drawing new energy from the sources of our faith and our Christian experience. To return to Galilee means above all to return to that blazing light with which God’s grace touched me at the start of the journey. From that flame I can light a fire for today and every day, and bring heat and light to my brothers and sisters. That flame ignites a humble joy, a joy which sorrow and distress cannot dismay, a good, gentle joy.”
Pope Francis is not happy with just giving an explanation which is valid for all Christians. This is not an issue of one size fits all. He then speaks of “a more existential "Galilee".
He explains this to mean “the experience of a personal encounter with Jesus Christ who called me to follow him and to share in his mission. In this sense, returning to Galilee means treasuring in my heart the living memory of that call, when Jesus passed my way, gazed at me with mercy and asked me to follow him. It means reviving the memory of that moment when his eyes met mine, the moment when he made me realize that he loved me.”
He invited all the faithful participating in the Easter Vigil to try to remember when they had their Galilee moment, that is when they had their existential meeting with Christ.
“The Gospel of Easter is very clear: we need to go back there, to see Jesus risen, and to become witnesses of his resurrection. This is not to go back in time; it is not a kind of nostalgia. It is returning to our first love, in order to receive the fire which Jesus has kindled in the world and to bring that fire to all people, to the very ends of the earth.”
Yesterday’s homily was another example of the Pope ability to communicate the Gospel’s message in an innovative simple but profound way. His thought made me think a lot. I hope it will also help you to discover the true meaning of Easter.