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Illustration: Detail of Mary Magdalene weeping at the crucifixion of Jesus, as portrayed in The Descent from the Cross (c. 1435) by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyde
Pope Francis’ homily for Easter Sunday Mass
Saint Peter’s Square – Easter Sunday, 20 April 2025
Sunday Gospel (John 20:1-9)
It was very early on the first day of the week and still dark, when Mary of Magdala came to the tomb.
She saw that the stone had been moved away from the tomb and came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved.
‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb’ she said ‘and we don’t know where they have put him.’
So Peter set out with the other disciple to go to the tomb.
The two of them ran together, but the other disciple, running faster than Peter, reached the tomb first; he bent down and saw the linen cloths lying on the ground, but did not go in.
Simon Peter who was following now came up, went right into the tomb, saw the linen cloths on the ground, and also the cloth that had been over his head; this was not with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in; he saw and he believed.
Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
Pope Francis’ homily
When Mary Magdalene, saw that the stone of the tomb had been rolled away, she ran to tell Peter and John.
Upon hearing the shocking news, the two disciples also went out and, as the Gospel says, “the two of them ran together” (Jn 20:4).
The main characters of the Easter stories all ran!
On the one hand, “running” could express the concern that the body of the Lord had been taken away; but, on the other hand, the haste of Mary Magdalene, Peter and John expresses the desire, the longing of the heart, the interior attitude of those who set out to search for Jesus.
He had risen from the dead and therefore was no longer in the tomb.
We have to look for him elsewhere.
This is the message of Easter: we must look for him elsewhere.
Christ is risen, he is alive!
He is no longer a prisoner of death, he is no longer wrapped in the shroud, and therefore we cannot confine him to a fairy tale, we cannot make him a hero of the ancient world or think of him as a statue in a museum!
On the contrary, we must search for him and therefore we cannot stand still.
We must take action, set out to look for him: look for him: look for him in life, in the faces of our brothers and sisters, look for him in everyday life, look for him everywhere except in the tomb.
We must seek without ceasing.
Because if he is risen from the dead, then he is present everywhere, he dwells among us, he hides himself and reveals himself even today in the sisters and brothers we meet along the way, in the most ordinary and unpredictable situations of our lives.
He is alive and always is with us, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love that each one of us carries out.
For this reason, our Easter faith, which opens us to the encounter with the Risen Lord and prepares us to welcome him into our lives, is anything but a complacent settling into a kind of “religious reassurance.”
On the contrary, Easter spurs us to action, to run like Mary Magdalene and the disciples.
Easter invites us to have eyes that can “see beyond,” to perceive Jesus, the One who lives, as the God who reveals himself and makes himself present even today, who speaks to us, who goes before us, surprises us.
Like Mary Magdalene, every day we can experience the loss of the Lord, but every day we can also run to look for him again, with the certainty that he will allow himself to be found and will fill us with the light of his resurrection.
Brothers and sisters, this is the greatest hope of our life: we can live this poor, fragile and wounded existence by clinging to Christ, because he has conquered death,
he has conquered our darkness and he will conquer the shadows of the world to make us live with him in joy, forever.
This is the goal toward which we press on, as the Apostle Paul says, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead (cf. Phil 3:12-14 – Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.). Like Mary Magdalene, Peter and John, we hasten to meet Christ.
The Jubilee invites us to renew the gift of hope within us, to entrust our sufferings and our worries to hope, to share it with those whom we meet along our journey and to entrust the future of our lives and the destiny of the human family to hope.
Therefore, we cannot be content with the fleeting things of this world or give in to sadness; we must run, filled with joy.
Let us run towards Jesus, let us rediscover the inestimable grace of being his friends.
Let us let his word of life and truth shine in our lives.
As the great theologian Henri de Lubac said, “It should be enough to understand this: Christianity is Christ. No, truly, there is nothing else but this. In Christ we have everything”.
And this “everything” that is the risen Christ opens our life to hope.
He is alive, he wants to renew our life even today.
To him, the conqueror of sin and death, we want to say:
“Lord, on this feast day we ask you for this gift: that we too may experience this eternal newness.
Cleanse us, O God, from the sad dust of habit, tiredness and indifference; give us the joy of waking each morning with wonder, with eyes ready to see the new colors of this morning, unique and unlike any other. Everything is new, Lord, and nothing is the same, nothing is old”.
Sisters and brothers, in the wonder of the Easter faith, which carries in our hearts every expectation of peace and liberation, we can say: With You, O Lord, everything is new.
With you, everything begins anew.
