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Tags: popefrancis | easter | mass | darkesthour

Pope: Easter Gives Hope in Our 'Darkest Hour,' Despite Fear

Pope: Easter Gives Hope in Our 'Darkest Hour,' Despite Fear
Pope Francis presides over a solemn Easter vigil ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica empty of the faithful following Italy's ban on gatherings to contain coronavirus contagion, at the Vatican, Saturday. (Remo Casilli/Pool Photo via AP)

Sunday, 12 April 2020 06:00 AM EDT

Pope Francis and Catholics around the world marked a solitary Easter Sunday, forced to celebrate the most joyful day in the Christian calendar amid the sorrowful reminders of the devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.

Normally, St. Peter’s Square would be awash in fresh flowers on Easter Sunday, with tulips and orchids decorating the piazza’s promenade in a riot of color to underscore Easter’s message of life and rebirth following Christ’s crucifixion.

This year, however, the cobblestoned piazza was bare. Police barricades ringed the square, blocking the tens of thousands who would normally flock to hear the pope deliver his noontime “Urbi et Orbi” speech and blessing “to the city and the world.”

Like pastors around the world, Francis was to instead celebrate Easter Mass inside the largely empty basilica, while the faithful watched on TV at home. Rather than appearing on the basilica loggia to impart his blessing, he was to speak in front of the tomb of St. Peter, underscoring the solitude confronting all of humanity amid lockdown orders and quarantines to prevent contagion.

It was a scene being repeated around the world, with the faithful either staying home or practicing social distancing in those churches where public Masses were still being celebrated.

At his Easter Vigil on Saturday night, Francis urged the faithful to not let the darkness and sorrow of the COVID-19 pandemic rob them of hoping for a better future.

“Tonight we acquire a fundamental right that can never be taken away from us: the right to hope,” he said. “It is a new and living hope that comes from God.”

It was a message that was echoing in empty churches around the world on Sunday, including in the Holy Land.

At Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified and entombed, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa urged the faithful to not be discouraged.

“Despite the sign of death and fear that we are seeing everywhere all over the world, we have to look at the good all those that are giving their lives for the others,” he said.

Only a handful of clergy were on hand for the Mass, and the streets of the Old City surrounding the church were empty of pilgrims and vendors who would normally be doing brisk business.

“The message of Easter is that life, despite all will prevail,” said Pizzaballa, the top Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land.

Earlier, on Saturday, the Pope said Easter offers a message of hope in people’s “darkest hour," as he celebrated a late-night vigil Mass Saturday in St. Peter’s Basilica, with the public barred because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pontiff in his homily likened the fears of current times to those experienced by Jesus’ followers the day after his crucifixion.

“They, like us, had before their eyes the drama of suffering, of an unexpected tragedy that happened all too suddenly,'' Francis said. ”They had seen death and it weighed on their hearts. Pain was mixed with fear" about their own lives. “Then, too, there was fear about the future and all that would need to be rebuilt.”

Francis added: “For them, as for us, it was the darkest hour.”

Easter vigil Mass in the basilica is among the Vatican's more evocative ceremonies. Celebrants enter in darkness, except for candlelight. The pontiff holds a tall Easter candle, which is lit for him. Then the basilica's lights are turned on, in a sign of joy. But this night, when the basilica was illuminated, all its emptiness was painfully visible, and the footsteps of the pope and his small entourage on the marble floor could clearly be heard as they walked in slow procession toward the altar.

Francis encouraged faithful to sow “seeds of hope, with small gestures of care, affection of prayer.”

"Tonight we acquire a fundamental right that can never be taken away from us: the right to hope,'' Francis said.

Still, he acknowledged the difficulty of obtaining optimism, saying “as the days go by and fears grow, even the boldest hope can dissipate.”

Describing the Easter message as a “message of hope,'' Francis urged Christians to be ”messengers of life in a time of death."

During Easter vigil Mass, adults converting to Catholicism are baptized by the pope, but the pandemic containment measures forced elimination of that tradition during the ceremony.

Earlier on Holy Saturday, the Turin Shroud, a burial cloth some believe covered Jesus, and which was associated with a 16th-century plague, was put on special view in a chapel in that northern city, through video streaming to inspire hope during the coronavirus outbreak.

Francis hailed the initiative by the Turin archbishop, saying making it visible meets the requests of the faithful who are suffering through the COVID-19 outbreak.

The linen, kept behind bulletproof glass in a Turin chapel, is shown to the public only on very special occasions.

In the 16th century, Milan's archbishop, the future St. Charles Borromeo, intensely desired to pray before the shroud while that city was ravaged by plague. The Duke of Savoy, in 1578, decided to bring the burial cloth of Christ from Chambéry, in France, to Turin, according to a Vatican account of that period.

Charles made the pilgrimage to Turin on foot, praying and fasting during the journey.

Skeptics say the linen bearing the figure of a crucified man is a medieval forgery. Believers regard it as one of Christianity's most awe-inspiring reminders of Jesus' crucifixion.

The cloth belongs to the Vatican, which has allowed its scientific testing.

© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Easter offers a message of hope in people's "darkest hour," Pope Francis said, as he celebrated a late-night vigil Mass Saturday in St. Peter's Basilica, with the public barred because of the COVID-19 pandemic.The pontiff in his homily likened the fears of current times to...
popefrancis, easter, mass, darkesthour
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2020-00-12
Sunday, 12 April 2020 06:00 AM
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