Urbi et orbi- Easter 2026

URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
LEO XIV

Dear brothers and sisters,
Christ is risen! Happy Easter!

For centuries, the Church has joyfully sung of the event that is the origin and foundation of her faith: “Yes, Christ my hope is arisen / Christ indeed from death is risen / Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning” (Easter Sequence).

Easter is the victory of life over death, of light over darkness, of love over hatred. It is a victory that came at a very high price: Christ, the Son of the living God (cf. Mt 16:16), had to die — and die on a cross — after suffering an unjust condemnation, being mocked and tortured, and shedding all his blood. As the true immolated Lamb, he took upon himself the sin of the world (cf. Jn 1:29; 1 Pet 1:18–19) and thus freed us all — and with us, all creation — from the dominion of evil.

But how was Jesus able to be victorious? What is the strength with which he defeated once and for all the ancient adversary, the prince of this world (cf. Jn 12:31)? What is the power with which he rose from the dead, not returning to his former life, but entering into eternal life and thus opening in his own flesh the passage from this world to the Father?

This strength, this power, is God himself for he is Love who creates and generates, Love who is faithful to the end and Love who forgives and redeems.

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As it happens, this is the 4,300th post on Καθολικός διάκονος.

The Resurrection of the Lord

Readings: Acts 10:34a.37-43; Psalm 118:1-2.16-17.22-23; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9

One of the reasons many people find Christ’s resurrection incomprehensible is that, living in a highly reductive culture, it is thought to be something merely to be believed rather than something to be lived. Christ rising from the dead should never be reduced to merely another fact in the world. Resurrection is a mode of being more than it is a belief.

In baptism, you died, were buried, and rose with Christ to new life. As our reading from Colossians clearly states: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”¹ By looking at your life, could others tell this?

Especially for those, like me, who were baptized as adults, is your new life different from your old life? Are you still conformed to this age, or has the Holy Spirit transformed your mind and your heart?

In few moments, you will renew your baptismal covenant with God. Preparation for this renewal is what Lent is for. This is the moment you were to be preparing for these past six weeks. Are you prepared? Are you ready to re-commit to living resurrection?

Easter is not about remembering an event that happened a long time ago in a land far away. It is not a historical commemoration. It is a commitment, a recommitment, a renewal. Who knows, maybe even a transformation?

As those resurrected, we seek what is above even as we live day-to-day. Far from calling us to evade and avoid the world, life in Christ calls us to a deep engagement with the world. It calls on each of us to testify that Jesus Christ “is the one appointed by God.”²

In the passage from Saint John’s Gospel, nobody sees the risen Lord. All that is revealed to them is an empty tomb in which they find rolled up burial cloths in one place and the cloth that covered Jesus’ head across the chamber.

Hence, Mary Magdalene, Peter and John (who is the disciple whom Jesus loved) are puzzled. “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”³ Nearly 2,000 years later, it is still difficult to understand what it means that Christ rose from the dead.

If you remember the Fifth Sunday of Lent, we also heard from Saint John’s Gospel. We heard about Jesus’ raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. When Jesus told His disciples that they were heading back to Judea upon learning that His friend had died, the reaction was, “Are you kidding me? We left there because they were going to kill you.” It was Thomas, sadly tagged as “doubting Thomas,” who, as Jesus pointed them southward, said, “Let us go die with him.”⁴

It may be easier to comprehend what it means to die with Christ than it is to grasp what it means to live in Him. It stands as a near certainty that Lazarus’ life was never the same after the Lord raised him from the dead. In like manner, our life, after Christ raised us from the waters of baptism should be different.

As to their discovery of the empty tomb prior to having any direct encounter with the Risen Lord, there were various possibilities as to why the tomb was empty. Mary Magadelene points to the most obvious one: someone has taken Jesus’ body and put elsewhere. From then until now, the question, Where is Christ? becomes perennial.

If Christ had not died, had not been raised, did not ascend, and did not send the Holy Spirit, then there would be no possibility of encountering Him today. The Eucharist is the most profound encounter with the Risen Christ. This is why if you really grasped what happens in the Eucharistic sacrifice, no one could keep you away from Mass.

Christ is not content merely to be close to you. He wants to be in you to live through you. It is by means of the sacraments, the Masterworks of the Holy Spirit, that He can do this- if you let Him, if you want Him to. Do you want Him to? That is the question on verge of renewing your baptismal commitment.

Where is Christ today? It is both His desire and His intent to be made present by His Body, the Church, comprised of those who eat His flesh and drink His blood. Mass comes from the Latin missa. Missa indicates, not being dismissed, but being sent. It is also related to missio, or mission. At the end of each Mass, we are sent forth on a mission.

This sending is a big part of what the makes the Church apostolic. An apostle, in Greek, is one who is sent. Our mission? Having encountered and received the Risen Lord in the Eucharist, sent forth to make Him present wherever you go.

If the Eucharist is the primary place to encounter the Risen Lord, then the only irrefutable proof that He is risen and, therefore, that the bread and wine are His body and blood, are the lives of those who partake.

Easter is about resurrection, transformation, conversion, about life coming for death. It’s springtime and we see this now happening everywhere you look. Today, Resurrection Sunday, let us go forth to proclaim that Christ is risen! He is truly risen from the dead. Therefore, everyone who believes in Him, “will receive forgiveness of sins through His name.”⁵

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1 Colossians 1:3.^↩
2 Acts 10:42.^↩
3 John 20:9.^↩
4 John 11:16.^↩
5 Acts 10:43.^↩

Triduum- Holy Saturday

The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1521

On Holy Saturday the Church waits at the Lord's tomb in prayer and fasting, meditating on his Passion and Death and on his Descent into Hell, and awaiting his Resurrection.

The Church abstains from the Sacrifice of the Mass, with the sacred table left bare, until after the solemn Vigil, that is, the anticipation by night of the Resurrection, when the time comes for paschal joys, the abundance of which overflows to occupy fifty days.

Holy Communion may only be given on this day as Viaticum (Roman Missal. Holy Week. Holy Saturday)

Triduum- Good Friday- Seventh of Jesus' Seven Last Words

Reading: Luke 23:46- Father into your hands I commend my spirit.

At the graveside, we commend our sister or brother, not to the earth, but to God. Just as “Do this in memory of me” means much more than a remembering- it is a calling-to-mind to make present- to commend means more than to just hand-over or leave. You commended yourself to God by dying and rising with Christ to new life through the waters of baptism.

Commendation also means something like giving charge to one who is worthy of trust. So, when our Lord commends his spirit to the Father, He gives himself over to the One who is eminently trustworthy.

The life of the disciple of Christ, who is not greater than the Master, is not merely a via Delarosa, it is a death, even a crucifixion, a kenotic emptying-out of oneself for others.¹ When will we learn that happiness and fulfillment do not come from relentless pursuit of self-interest but is realized by seeking the good of the other?

But who is this mysterious other? The other is certainly the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned, and even the dead. Further, the other is the sinner, the ignorant, the doubtful, the sorrowful, the injured, the unjustly accused and condemned. The other is also one’s spouse, children, parents, siblings, friends, and fellow parishioners. The other is the immigrant, the addicted, the outcast.

The Crucifixion, by Thomas Eakins, 1880. Wikimedia Commons

The Christian term for this other is “neighbor.” It is by redefining who our neighbor is that reveals the revolutionary nature of our Lord’s teachings as given in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Being a Christian means intentionally making yourself a neighbor, especially to someone in need. Needs are both material and spiritual. What better way to tell someone who is thirsty about Jesus than by giving him something to drink?

In Spanish, the word for neighbor is vecino. This is closely related to the English word “vicinity.” Hence, it points to the reality that far from being an abstract concept, your neighbor is someone in proximity to you, someone in your vicinity.

Just as it is easy to love humanity because “humanity” is an abstraction but difficult to love all those who annoy, inconvenience, or make you uncomfortable, it is easy to have neighborly feelings toward people far away for whom you can do little or nothing but hard to help the person who crosses your path and needs some assistance.

Sins of omission are real. Indifference in the face of need is almost always a temptation. This is why we must resist what Pope Francis dubbed the “culture of indifference.”² The culture of indifference is an aspect of what Pope Saint John Paul II called the “culture of death.” John Paul II did not propose a “culture of life” to counteract “the culture of death.” Rather, he called for a “culture of love.”³

To commend also means to recognize and reward outstanding service. You commend yourself to God by promoting what Pope Francis called,

The true ordo amoris. . . that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan,” that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception⁴

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1 Galations 6:14.^↩
2 Pope Francis, Morning Meditation in the Chapel of Domus Sanctae Marthae, 8 January 2019.^↩
3 Pope John Paul II. Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, sec. 12 and sec. 101.^↩
4 Pope Francis. Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the United States of America, 10 February 2025; Luke 10:25-37..^↩

Triduum- Good Friday

"He mounted the Cross to free us from the fascination with nothingness, to free us from the fascination with appearances, with the ephemeral."

Servant of God Msgr. Luigi Giussani

Triduum- Holy Thursday

"Like Peter, who at first resisted Jesus’ initiative, we too must 'learn repeatedly that God’s greatness is different from our idea of greatness… because we systematically desire a God of success and not of the Passion'" Pope Leo XIV homily at Mass of the Lord's Supper, citing Pope Benedict XVI homily at Mass of the Lord’s Supper, 20 March 2008

Year 2 Monday of Holy Week

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-7; Psalm 27:1-3.13-14; John 12:1-11

There is a big difference between understanding Jesus as miracle worker and believing Him to be the Christ, Son of the living God. The first flows from the second but it does not do so necessarily. It’s important to note that Jesus’ attitude to His own miracles is ambivalent at best. Jesus would still be the Christ even if He performed no miracles! The greatest miracle of all, of course, is His resurrection.

The Lord understood the spectacle His miracles made. He knew the curiosity they generated. He knew that based on stories of what He had done making the rounds that many sought Him out not for salvation, not forgiveness of their sins, not life everlasting, but to see a magic show or to have some immediate material need met.

After feeding 5,000 on the far side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus went back across to Capernaum. The crowd followed Him. It’s easy to forget that the Bread of Life Discourse begins with the Lord chiding the crowd: “I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.”¹ Keep in mind that “a sign” points to something beyond itself.

Towards the end of our Gospel today, the inspired author tells us explicitly that the large crowd gathered around the house in Bethany not only because Jesus was there, “but also to see Lazarus.”² Who wouldn’t want to see someone who had been dead for four days and then, by simple command, was brought back to life?

In our age, we would be more prone to launch a scientific investigation into the physics and biology of someone who was dead coming back to life. What is missed by looking either through the lens of magic or science is the genuinely metaphysical aspect.

Even if it was possible to explain how this might’ve happened or prove that such a thing is, in fact, possible, the question “Why?” is ignored. Understanding how doesn't necessarily tell you why. For what purpose did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? So “that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”³

Jesus did this to demonstrate exactly what He said to Martha on the dusty road leading to Bethany: “I am the resurrection and the life.”⁴ Raising Lazarus was but a preview of what was to come. Lazarus, after being raised from the dead, died again. Hence, what he experienced was more a resuscitation than resurrection. Of course, it is no less stunning for that. He was dead and brought back to life!

Although it appears in the following chapter, this scene in which Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with oil and then dries them with her hair, is referenced at the beginning of the pericope about the Lord raising Lazarus from the dead. In a parenthetical statement, the author notes: “Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.”⁵ This reinforces the significance of Mary's humble act.

The significance of Mary’s anointing Jesus is a recognition that He is Messiah, whom the Bethany siblings believed Him to be. Messiah means “anointed one.” It also pointed to Jesus’ own death. Jesus’ rebuke of Judas Iscariot indicates both these things.

What this means is that to have Jesus is to have everything. The only concise definition of eternal life that we find in all Sacred Scripture is also found in Saint John’s Gospel: “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”⁶

At the Great Paschal Vigil you, too, will witness the miracle of the dead being brought to life. It is the miracle of baptism. Just like in Jesus’ day, you must have eyes to see. As a sacrament, baptism, too, is a sign.

As Catholics, we say that a sacrament is an “efficacious sign.” We designate them as such because sacraments, while certainly pointing beyond themselves, don’t merely signify something, or stand in for something that is absent. A sacrament “actually makes present what it signifies.”⁷

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1 John 6:26.^↩
2 John 12:9.^↩
3 John 11:4.^↩
4 John 11:25.^↩
5 John 11:2.^↩
6 John 17:3.^↩
7 USCCB. Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan, 32. 2009.^↩