Pope Francis came back to us to celebrate Holy Week and Easter. What a gift.
His final homily — his last official teaching — came on Easter Sunday. And he taught why it is necessary to always look for Christ, to never stop seeking Our Lord:
“Because if he has 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 is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us.
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 some sort of ‘religious reassurance.’ On the contrary, Easter spurs us to action, to run like Mary Magdalene and the disciples; it 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, goes before us, surprises us. Like Mary Magdalene, every day we can experience losing 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 clinging to Christ, because he has conquered death, he conquers our darkness and he will conquer the shadows of the world, to make us live with him in joy, forever. This is the goal towards which we press on, as the Apostle Paul says, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead (cf. Phil 3:12-14).”
Pope Francis died today, Easter Monday, April 21, 2025. He was 88 years old and for the last 12 years of his life he served Catholics as pope and he served all people as a prophetic witness who called us to go to the periphery and seek out the suffering, the wounded, and the marginalized. Pope Francis was an ardent advocate for mercy, peace, fraternity, and human dignity. He repeatedly called on us to share the Gospel.
Pope Francis reintroduced us to our God of Hope. Francis reminded us that “this is the greatest hope of our life: we can live this poor, fragile and wounded existence clinging to Christ, because he has conquered death, he conquers our darkness and he will conquer the shadows of the world, to make us live with him in joy, forever.”
My heart is filled with the Joy of Easter, and I am deeply grateful to Pope Francis for rejuvenating my faith.
From the first moment.
May the Father welcome him with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
May he rest in God’s eternal peace.
Image: Vatican Media
Mike Lewis is the founding managing editor of Where Peter Is. He and Jeannie Gaffigan co-host Field Hospital, a U.S. Catholic podcast.
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