Scripts for the homilies or reflections of Holy Week

Palm Sunday in the Passion of the Lord

We begin Holy Week today, which

we have been preparing for the
Lent. Today Jesus enters the holy city of
Jerusalem and we welcome it as its disciples, with
branches, flowers, and palms. The Lord comes solemnly and we accompany Him in the
procession of the Triumph with our songs, on this Palm Sunday.

The palms and branches we carried in the procession remind us of the

glorious triumph of Christ, who has defeated evil and death and who, one day, the
will ultimately triumph in his second coming at the end of times. The
blessed palms are very beautiful and suggestive sacramentals that remind us
the victory of Jesus Christ at Easter, but that we should not keep them as
amulets or something like that, to ward off evil spirits, lightning and the
storms...

The narration of the Passion on this Palm Sunday shows the reality.
the humanity of Jesus and the humbling of the Lord, as stated in Philippians 2:6-11
(second reading of today's Mass). It shows us the communion of God, not only
with the humanity of his Son, who suffers on the cross, but also with us.

We see here Jesus as a true suffering man, tortured and

humiliated, abandoned by his own, pursued, unjustly judged,
executed and killed like so many others in human history. Passion that is the
expression of supreme obedience to the Father. Jesus comes into life through his
surrender to death, for his surrender to God, at the very moment of his death,
his total and radical submission to the will of the Father

The Passion is the path of his messianism, the true identity of

Jesus. The Son of God, who is confessed as such by Peter, is the Son of Man,
the Messiah of the cross, not of easy triumph, but the Messiah who dies for
we, as the prophet Isaiah announced, in the first reading of today. His
passion and his death are the path to our salvation. His blood is the
manifestation of his surrender to the Father.
 With his passion, Jesus conquers death and opens the path of life for us.
this Palm Sunday, we are going to acclaim the Lord of Triumph, Jesus King
Victorious, with the palm procession, with which we start the celebration of his
Paschal Mystery. We commemorate his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, with our
accompaniment and with our songs

Let us accompany Christ this Holy Week, in his death and

resurrection. From today the Church invites us not only to meditate and pray this
mystery of Easter, but to live it in our life, accepting with faith, what
it can be a struggle to be Christians and nurturing a trust
in God who is our Father. If we accompany Christ to the cross, we also
we will be participants in his new life of the Resurrected.

Let us open ourselves to the grace of God in these holy days, especially to
the brothers: let us die to ourselves, to our selfishness and sin, to
to be able to rise with Jesus to a new life. May the liturgical celebrations and
the pious exercises of these days allow us to update in ourselves the
Paschal Mystery that we are starting this Sunday.

Holy Easter Triduum

Holy Thursday

Upon arriving at this afternoon of Holy Thursday,

we celebrate the Lord's Supper as a sacrament of his redemptive Passover,
his hour, the hour to pass from this world to the Father. The Lord reminded his
disciples, from whom he said goodbye at this Passover dinner, what was the meaning
savior from his death on the cross: his body sacrificed and given for
we, your blood shed to give life to the world. A death that culminated
with the triumph of life. Therefore, at the Last Supper, Jesus instituted the
Eucharist, this sacrament and fraternal food, with which He has wanted
to stay among us as a memorial of his Easter.

In the first reading, taken from the Book of Exodus, we hear the
narration of Easter and its celebration. The Easter festival was a very
important to the people of Israel, in which the liberation of the
slavery of Egypt. It was God's passage through the life of the people.
 They celebrated by eating a lamb, accompanied by unleavened bread and
bitter lettuces, also of the wine, especially, the cup of thanksgiving,
in an environment of joy and gratitude to God. Jesus wanted to celebrate it for
last time, with his disciples, as a farewell dinner, at the end of his life
delivered by her own.

Before celebrating the last Passover with the disciples, Jesus washed their
peasant. With a gesture that corresponded to a servant, he wanted to imprint in the minds and
in the hearts of his apostles the sense of what would happen shortly after.
In fact, passion and death constitute the fundamental service of love.
with which the Son of God freed humanity from sin. At the same time, the
the passion and death of Christ reveal the deep meaning of the new commandment
that I entrusted to the apostles: 'as I have loved you, love one another.'
the others" (Jn 13, 34).

"Do this in remembrance of me" (1 Cor 11:24, 25). Jesus said in

two occasions when delivering the bread transformed into His Body and the wine transformed
in his Blood: "I have given you an example so that you may also do the same,
as I have done to you” (Jn 13:15), he had recommended shortly before,
after having washed the feet of the apostles.

Christians know, therefore, that they have to "commemorate" their

Master, by mutually offering the service of charity: "to wash oneself"
mutually the feet”. In particular, they know they have to remember Jesus
repeating the "memorial" of the Dinner with the bread and the wine consecrated by the
celebrant priest, who repeats over them the words spoken
then for Christ. This is what the Christian community began to do
since the beginning, as Paul testified in the text we just heard:
Every time they eat this bread and drink this cup, they proclaim the death of
Lord, until He comes (1 Cor 11:26).

To remain faithful to this mandate, to remain united to

He like the branches to the vine, to love as He has loved, is necessary
to feed on His Body and His Blood, from the Eucharist. When telling them to the
apostles, "do this in remembrance of me," the Lord united the Church to
living memorial of his Easter. Despite being the only priest of the New
Alliance wanted to have the need for men who are consecrated by the Spirit
Saints will act in intimate union with His Person, distributing the food of the
life.

Let us ask the Lord that the People of God may never lack the Bread that
support him through the earthly pilgrimage. May we never cease to
to marvel at the mystery of the Eucharist, upon discovering that all of life
Cristiana is connected to the mystery of faith that in this afternoon (or evening)
we solemnly celebrate.

In this Eucharist of Holy Thursday, in the rite of communion and in the

extension of this, which is the adoration before the Blessed Sacrament in the
Place of the Reserve, let us give thanks for the gift of the Eucharist and the gift of the
charity, trying to respond with our love to love 'to the extreme'
of the Lord. So be it.

Holy Friday of the Passion of the Lord

Today, Good Friday, is a day of contemplation and

meditation on the glorious passion of Christ. On this day
special, in which the Church does not celebrate the sacraments, we
we gather reverently around the saving cross of
our Redeemer.

Today begins the Easter of Jesus, that is, his passage from
this world to the Father through his death, which comes to
to culminate your life dedicated to God and to your brothers, as the second says
Reading, taken from the Letter to the Hebrews: Having arrived at perfection, he became
in the cause of salvation for all who obey Him.

Today we come to affirm our faith in Jesus, our love and following.
to him up to the cross, giving thanks for everything he has done for us, for
your unconditional surrender to the extreme, asking you from the bottom of my heart that your
redeeming love change us, transform us, and make us live his resurrection to
all of us and everyone, to be, at the same time, supportive of all that
today they suffer the passion, pain, and death of Jesus in our homeland and in
our world.
 Yesterday, Holy Thursday, this love of the Lord "to the utmost" it
we celebrated in the Eucharistic memorial. This afternoon, we celebrate it in the fact
historical, bloody, and supreme of the passion and death of Jesus. It was a Friday
before the most solemn day of the Passover of the Jews. "Because disfigured
he did not seem like a man, nor did he have a human appearance... My servant will justify many
"because he bore their crimes." We have heard it in the prophecy of
Isaiah, in the first reading.

In the face of Jesus' passion, many speeches are not necessary. It is the hour.
from admiration and communion of feelings; therefore, we must
to limit ourselves to helping to contemplate, in solidarity with the heart of Mary, her
Mother, who, like in Bethlehem, "kept all these things in her heart."
"Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence," the author told us.
Letter to the Hebrews.

Jesus nailed to the cross is "manifestation of God", of "what God is like".

Faithfulness is found in the heart of the cross. The mystery of the cross does not
discover like someone solving a problem. The only key is free love
until the end."One of the soldiers, with the spear, pierced his side, and at
a point bled water and blood, signs of his ultimate sacrifice of love
for us.

On the cross, the words that were once said in the atrium take on full meaning.
from the temple: "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and let him drink. As it is written
Scripture, rivers of living water will flow from within those who believe in me." He said
that referring to the spirit that those who would believe in him would receive (Jn
7,37-39).

The strength of Jesus during the Passion is revealed in the Resurrection.

passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus are different facets of a life
made of faithfulness. The Resurrection is not a reward, but the explosion of the
faithfulness of the Father. In the certainty of the faithfulness of the Father, Jesus commands to
Pedro when he draws the sword to defend him: "Put the sword in the
"stuff". And he will respond to Pilate with serene strength, even though he foresees the
storm that is coming upon him: "I was born for that and for that I came to the
world: to bear witness to the truth". In total emptiness, he puts forth his last breath.
in the hands of the Father, secure in His faithfulness.
 From now on, the cross is the great mystery buried in humanity. With
the eyes illuminated by the contemplation of the cross, we stand before the
world to contemplate it "like someone who sees -in it- the invisible" and hear the voice
that calls us: 'I am thirsty.'

After a few moments of silence and encouraged by the Spirit that

sprout from the cross, we will pray for the needs of all men and women
our brothers. Today more than ever, the requests of Christians do not
they can have no limits or borders. Afterwards, we will venerate the cross. Contemplated
with 'resurrection eyes', becomes a sign of God's faithfulness in
middle of the world. And we will confess the faith of the centurion, which is the faith of the Church:

Truly this man was the Son of God.

We will worship, then, this afternoon, the holy tree of the redemptive cross of
Christ and let us do what we can to eliminate from this world the crosses of the
injustice, of evil, of sin, of inhuman violence and suffering
that torment our brothers daily. So be it.

Homily of the Easter Vigil

Tonight is a night in which we acclaim Christ Light, victor of

the darkness of evil and sin, with the singing of the Easter Proclamation and carrying in
our hands the candles, signs of our new baptismal life and that, by
through baptism, we have been illuminated by Christ, Light of the world.

In the Easter proclamation, the Church announces the wonders

of God, made with His Son to rescue him from death. With
through his death and resurrection, Jesus has opened the way for us
of the life that takes us to heaven. Death is defeated for
always for the love of Christ, since he shared
our own death.

The proclamation of the Gospel tonight, us

filled with joy, for we heard that the stone of the Lord's tomb was
removed and that the tomb was open. That is to say, that the tomb is open and empty.
sign of the resurrection of the Lord and that Jesus should not be sought in the
world of the dead, if not in the world of the living. That we are called to announce to the
world that Jesus has risen.
 Saint Paul reminds us that, through baptism, we were buried with
Christ in his death...so that we may lead a new life. Through Baptism,
God passes through our life and allows us to live now the eternity of God:
consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, reaffirm the
apostle of the gentiles.

We are vigilant and to awaken in faith, in the

hope, in the resurrection of Christ, we have gone through the stages
fundamentals of that History of Salvation. We have followed the steps of
people of Israel, their liberation from slavery, the night of extermination for the
firstborns of Egypt and of the liberation for the children of Israel.

And the passage through the Red Sea, where the waters sank the soldiers of
Pharaoh and they made a wall for the free passage of the people of Israel. And the covenant
of God with Abraham. And the promises of the prophets. And the calling of the
prophets to faithfulness, to the covenant.

Holy and happy night! We have heard the wonders of God. That is why to
this liturgy of Holy Saturday-Easter Vigil-is called the mother of all
vigils. It is the mother of all liturgies because it is the center, the nucleus of
our faith: That Christ has died and has risen, and that Christ lives by faith
in its believers, in the Church.

But all this, brothers, has to be personal history for each one.
It is in the rite of baptism where we enter to celebrate the Easter of Jesus.
We are baptized–as Saint Paul has told us–in the death of Jesus,
and we have risen with glorious Christ. Incorporated into his death, we were born
as children of God, as children of the Spirit, as children of freedom.

And for that, some signs have preceded us: the sign of the new fire, the
sign of the light, the Paschal candle, sign of the risen Christ, Lord of time and
from history, Christ the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Christ crucified
and resurrected. The other signs will come later: the water of baptism and the Spirit,
to whom we do not see, but is the One who makes this vigil once again Easter
for us.
 The blessed water will be the baptismal font where they will be conceived.
new children of God. The baptismal font is like the maternal womb where
we have been born and we have been begotten. And the Holy Spirit has made this
water becomes a source of life and has made us in the image of God, of
Jesus Christ the Lord, and temples of the same Spirit. He has brought us into the
Mother Church, which is also the womb in which we have been born.

Today we are all asked to return to the maternal womb of the

Church, at the heart of the baptismal font to be reborn as children of God.
And that's why we have, in addition to Lenten penance, the sacrament of the
reconciliation, if we have lost the baptismal grace. Our Passover is that:
revive our own baptism, the grace of the sacrament of the first
consecration.

"Let's go to the tomb," said the women. And they went to the tomb. And
we also come to meet the Lord, whom we left yesterday
dead and today lives. His body, his corpse, is not here. The Lord is alive and
not only in heaven. The Lord is alive in our faith and in our heart.
believers. He is alive in the heart of this community, in the heart of the
children, young people, adults, and senior citizens.

We are all called to proclaim this Good News: that Christ has
risen! In the Eastern Church, Christians usually go out afterwards
from the celebration of the Easter Vigil, to knock on all the neighbors' doors and
to tell them: "brother, the Lord has risen, peace be with you." Hopefully that
let us do the same: let us also go and announce that the Lord
He has risen for all the men and women of this world. Amen.

RESURRECTION SUNDAY
Mass of the day

Saint Peter, in the first reading, taken from the book of Acts
from the Apostles, was announcing to us the fundamental message of
our faith: the resurrection of Christ. The one, after having
was announced and communicated in the primitive preaching, to
we have also received it through the
preaching and the testimony of the Church: Jesus Christ, the
Crucified is alive and that is why our life makes sense and our faith
also. This is what we have come to celebrate and proclaim on this beautiful day of
Easter.

Saint Paul tells us to seek the things above, to leave behind the earthly.
our desire to live attached to the world and to material things, to let go
our selfishness, invites us to sweep away the old leaven, a very paschal image
by the way, to be unleavened bread, that is, to live a sincere and wicked-free life,
caused by the truth, to make the Easter of Christ possible among us.
Finally, living a new life, as a preview of the resurrection that awaits us.
wait, after death, but that, in germ, has been anticipated for us with
Christ.

(John recounts in his Paschal story that the disciples of Jesus,

especially, Peter and the beloved disciple, those who see the empty tomb of Jesus, the
sales and the shroud, as proof of his resurrection. From the faith of the
disciples, the faith of the Church in the risen Jesus Christ is born, that also
rooted in the testimony of the Scriptures). Gospel mass of the morning.

The disciples of Jesus, puzzled by his death, on the way of

Emmaus, they discover him there as a pilgrim who accompanies them, in the Scriptures and
in the fraction of the bread. Today the Church also discovers them, not only in the signs
sacraments that he celebrates and in the Word that he proclaims, but in all of the
walkers by our side, especially in serving the most needy.
In all of them, Jesus is manifested to us as resurrected) Gospel of the Mass
evening

For the first Christians to say: "God has raised Jesus from the dead"
the dead" was something as natural as breathing. They didn't need long
sermons or complicated explanations. And greet each other with a "Christ has
"resurrected" was as appropriate as our routine "good morning". Because it was
the first cry of faith, of new life, and definitive victory.

The victory of the Resurrection of Jesus also concerns us

we. We are called to share and experience the Resurrection of
Christ. Let's stop 'looking for the one who lives among the dead'; let's stop
to resist leaving our graves. The stone and the stones of all the
tombs have been removed and taken away and we are invited to live the novelty of the
new life, resurrected.
 Because today's Christians identify more with Good Friday.
The Passion, the suffering, the blood, the war, the victims, we are all
victims or we identify with the victims... Death is glorified and the
television screens or the media are filled with tragedy.
We are the people of Good Friday and crowded funerals.

And Easter Day? And Sunday, Easter Day? So accustomed

we are at the seriousness of funerals that we don't know what to do with the strength
new; we are so used to living as victims that we never
we feel liberated; the tombstones are so heavy that we thought not even God could lift them
remover. Easter Sunday is the day to turn your back on all the cemeteries
to joyfully embrace the brothers, hope, and life in the world.

Today, Easter Day, we do know that Christ has risen, that Christ lives,
and that everyone and everything will have a 'happy ending' in his glory. Amen.