Pope Francis’ advice for Holy Week: Look to the cross, our hope is there

Vatican City, Apr 5, 2023 / 09:53 am

Pope Francis has offered advice for how to have a fruitful Holy Week, urging people to focus on the essentials and look to the cross as the source of hope.

In his last public audience Wednesday before the start of the Paschal Triduum, the pope noted how many people today who walk down the street appear sad, focused “only on their cell phones, but without peace, without hope.”

He urged people to eliminate “useless things that are substitutes for hope” during Holy Week to focus on the true source of hope found in Christ.

“During these holy days, let us draw near the Crucified One. Let us place ourselves before him … to take an honest look at ourselves, removing whatever is superfluous. Let us let Jesus regenerate hope in us,” Pope Francis said at the end of his general audience on April 5.

“This is needed: to go back to the heart, to the essentials, to a simple life, stripped of many useless things, which are substitutes for hope. Today, when everything is complex and we risk losing the plot, we need simplicity, to rediscover the value of sobriety, the value of renunciation, to clean up what pollutes the heart and makes us sad,” he said.

Speaking in St. Peter’s Square on a chilly spring morning, Pope Francis also highlighted how Jesus did not cover up or hide his wounds when he was nailed to the cross.

“Brothers and sisters, we too are wounded — who isn’t in life? And many times, with hidden wounds that we hide out of shame. Who does not bear the scars of past choices, of misunderstandings, of sorrows that remain inside and are difficult to overcome? But also of wrongs suffered, sharp words, unmerciful judgments?”

“God does not hide his wounds, that pierced his body and soul, from our eyes. He shows them so we can see that a new passage can be opened with Easter: to make of our own wounds, holes of light.”

By offering forgiveness and love from the cross, Jesus “converts evil into good” and “sorrow into love,” he said.