Pope calls for unanimous condemnation of "cruel abominations" in Brussels

Francis appeals for everyone "to persevere in prayer and to ask the Lord in this Holy Week to comfort the hearts afflicted and convert the hearts of these people blinded by this cruel fundamentalism". In the Paschal Triduum "everything speaks of mercy", the love of God who "has no limits," it is "to the very end."

 

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – A unanimous condemnation of the "cruel abominations that are causing only death, terror and horror". This is what Pope Francis has appealed for from all people of good will, again referring to the Brussel’s attacks yesterday.  He has also asked everyone to " to persevere in prayer and to ask the Lord in this Holy Week to comfort the hearts afflicted and convert the hearts of these people blinded by this cruel fundamentalism ", and reciting a Hail Mary with participants faithful at the general audience.

Before the appeal, to the 25 thousand people present in St Peter's Square, the Pope spoke of the Paschal Triduum, which the Church enters tomorrow, where "everything speaks of mercy", the love of God that "has no limits," that is "until the very end".

"God - he said - really offers everything for each of us and does not spare himself in anything. The Mystery that we worship in this Holy Week is a great love story that knows no obstacles. The Passion of Jesus lasts until the end of the world, because it is a story of sharing with the suffering of all humanity and a permanent presence in the events of all our personal lives. In short, the Easter Triduum is a memorial of a drama of love that gives us the certainty that we will never be abandoned in the trials of life".

"On Holy Thursday Jesus institutes the Eucharist, anticipating in the Passover meal his sacrifice on Golgotha. To help the disciples fully understand the love that animates it, he washes their feet, once again offering a firsthand example of how they themselves will have to act. The Eucharist is the love that becomes service. It is the sublime presence of Christ who wants to nourish every man, especially the most vulnerable, to enable them to witness a way through the difficulties of the world. Not only. In giving himself to us as food, Jesus attests that we have to learn to break with other such nourishment for it to become a true communion of life with those in need. He gives himself to us and asks us to remain in him to do the same”.

"Good Friday is the culminating moment of love. The death of Jesus on the cross, his abandonment to the Father to give salvation to the whole world, expresses the love given until the very end, without end. A love that is meant to include everyone, without exception. A love that extends to every time and every place: an inexhaustible source of salvation from which each of us, all sinners, can draw. If God has shown us his supreme love in the death of Jesus, then we too, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, can and should love each other. And finally, Holy Saturday is the day of God's silence. It must be a day of silence, and we must do everything so for us it is really a day of silence, as it was in those days: the day of God’s silence. Jesus laid in the tomb shares the tragedy of death with all humanity. It is a silence that speaks and expresses its solidarity with the abandoned in love as always, that the Son of God comes to filling the void that only the infinite mercy of the Father God can fill. God is silent, but for love. In this day of love - that silent love – we await life in the resurrection. We think, on Holy Saturday: it will do us good to think about the silence of Our Lady, 'the believer', who was silently awaiting the Resurrection. Our Lady will be the icon, for us, of that Holy Saturday. We should ponder how Our Lady experienced that Holy Saturday; in waiting. It is love that does not doubt but that hopes in the word of the Lord, so that it manifests itself and shines for all on Easter Sunday ".

 "It's all a great mystery of love and mercy. Our words are poor and insufficient to fully express it. We may be aided by the experience of a mystical girl, not very well known, who wrote sublime pages on the love of Christ. This is Julienne of Norwich; the girl was illiterate, this girl, who had visions of the Passion of Jesus and then, became a recluse, described, with simple but profound and intense language, the sense of this merciful love. She wrote: "Then the good Lord asked me:" Are you happy that I have suffered for you? "I said," Yes, good Lord, and I thank You very much; yes, good Lord, that You be blessed. " Then Jesus, our good Lord, he said: "If you are happy, so am I. Having suffered passion for you is a joy for me, a happiness, an eternal joy; and if I could I would suffer more. ' " This is our Jesus, who says to each of us, if I could suffer more for you, I would. "

 "How beautiful are these words! - concluded the Pope – they allow us to really understand the immense and boundless love that the Lord has for each of us. Let us be enveloped by this mercy that comes to us; and these days, while we keep our eyes fixed on the passion and death of the Lord, we welcome into our hearts the greatness of His love, and, like the Our Lady on Saturday, in silence, wait for the Resurrection".

• Vatican Pope Francis Brussels
• attacks fundamentalism Easter
• Triduum mercy