This Palm Sunday morning, Pope Francis presided in St. Peter's Square at the Mass for the Eucharist celebration which commemorates the entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, and which begins the traditional celebrations of the paschal mystery of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus in this Holy Week, with Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Tens of thousands of faithful and pilgrims attended the Eucharist.
The novelty was the absence of a homily, which the Holy Father replaced with a long period of silent prayer before reciting the Creed. The main concelebrant was the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Oriental Churches, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, together with Cardinals Giovanni Battista Re and Leonardo Sandri.
Before the Mass, a procession of dozens of concelebrating cardinals and bishops took place in St. Peter's Square, next to the obelisk, with the "parmureli"The palm branches woven according to an ancient and complex system that was used to acclaim the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. It is an ancient and not so well known tradition that has been renewed every year since the time of Pope Sixtus V. This year the"parmureli" The products come from the Italian city of San Remo, and their processing and transportation has been entrusted to the Association Sanremasca Family.
Subsequently, several hundred lay people and their families processed with olive branches, recalling the triumphal entry of the Lord in a donkey in JerusalemThe crowd cheered him on.
The Passion of the Lord was read at Mass from the Gospel of St. Mark; the first reading, from the prophet Isaiah; the psalm, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and in the Epistle, the deacons read an excerpt from the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Philippians that refers to the humility and self-abasement of Jesus who, being God, took the condition of a slave and submitted himself to death and death on a cross.
Prayer for the victims in Moscow, for Ukraine, for Gaza...
At the end of the Eucharistic celebration, the Pontiff prayed the Angelus to the Virgin Mary, and condemned the "cowardly terrorist attack" that took place in Moscow, prayed for the victims and their families, and prayed that God would convert the hearts of those who commit these "inhuman actions that offend God, who has commanded us: Thou shalt not kill".
The Holy Father also said that Jesus entered Jerusalem as a humble and peaceful King. "Let us open our hearts, only He can free us from enmity, from hatred, from violence, because He is mercy and forgiveness of sins." "Let us pray for all our brothers and sisters who suffer because of the war, in a special way I think of the martyred Ukraine", where so many people are in great need. And let us also think of Gaza, which suffers so much, and in so many places of war, he stressed.
In the text of the homily, which the Pope did not deliver, the Holy Father pointed to the Garden of Olives, Gethsemane, as a "compendium" of the entire Passion, and referred to the "extreme solitude" of Jesus, and the need for prayer, as Jesus did.
The next meeting of the Holy Father at Easter will be on March 28, Holy Thursday, in the Vatican Basilica, where the Chrism Mass will take place at 9:30 a.m., the day on which priests renew their priestly promises. On the evening of that day, which commemorates the institution of the Eucharist and the Day of Fraternal Love, the Pontiff will celebrate Mass In Coena Domini at the Rebibbia women's prison in Rome.
