“Christ descends into the kingdom of the underworld to bring the announcement of the resurrection to all those who were in the darkness and in the shadow of death”. Pope Leone continues Catechesis on “Jesus Christ our Hope” by focusing his meditation on the theme of the Easter of Jesus. He resumes the verse of the Bible, “and in the spirit he went to bring The announcement also to prisoner souls “to remember that this announcement” represents the deepest and most radical gesture of God’s love for humanity. In fact, it is not enough to say or believe that Jesus died for us: It should be recognized that the loyalty of his love wanted to look for us where ourselves we had lost ourselves, where we can only push the strength of a light capable of crossing the domain of darkness».
The underworldexplains the Pontiff, «in the biblical conception, They are not so much a place, as an existential condition: that condition in which life is weakened and reign pain, loneliness, guilt and separation from God and others. Christ also reaches us in this abyss, crossing the doors of this kingdom of darkness. So, it enters the house of death, to empty it, to free the inhabitants, taking them by the hand one by one. It is the humility of a God who does not stop before our sin, who does not frighten himself in front of the extreme refusal of the human being “.
The announcement of salvation is “also to prisoner souls”. One of the “most moving images, which is developed not in the canonical gospels, but in an apocryphal text called Nicodemo’s Gospel. According to this tradition, the Son of God went into the most dense darkness to reach the last of his brothers and sisters, to also bring his light over there. In this gesture there are all the strength and tenderness of the Easter announcement: Death is never the last word ».
And this descent, underlines the Pope, “does not only concern the past, but touches the life of each of us. The underworld are not only the condition of those who died, but also of those who live death because of evil and sin. It is also the daily hell of loneliness, shame, abandonment, the effort of living. Christ enters all these dark realities to testify to the love of the Father “. So not «to judge, but to free. Not to blame, but to save. He does it without clamor, on tiptoe, like those who enter a hospital room to offer comfort and help ».
In this descent there is The meeting “between Christ and Adam. A meeting that is a symbol of all possible meetings between God and man. The Lord goes down where the man hid for fear, and calls him by name, he takes him by the hand, raises him, brings him back to light. He does it with full authority, but also with infinite sweetness, like a father with his son who fears that he is no longer loved ».
Recalls the eastern icons of the resurrection in which «Christ is depicted as he breaks through the doors of the underworld and, tending his arms, grabs the wrists of Adam and Eva. He does not only save himself, he does not return to life alone, but drags all humanity with him. This is the true glory of the Risen One: it is a power of love, it is solidarity of a God who does not want to save himself without us, but only with us». God, Leone insists, “does not rise if not embracing our miseries and raising us in view of a new life. Holy Saturday is, then, the day when the sky visits the earth deeper. It is the time when every corner of human history is touched by Easter light ». If Christ could go down to the underworld, “nothing can be excluded from his redemption. Not even our nights, not even our oldest faults, not even our broken bonds. There has not passed so ruined, there is no compromised story that it cannot be touched by mercy. Dear brothers and sisters, descending, for God, is not a defeat, but the fulfillment of his love. It is not a failure, but the way through which he shows that no place is too far away, no heart too closed, no tomb too sealed for his love ». Even when we touch the bottom, right there “God is capable of starting a new creation. A creation made of raised people, for forgiven hearts, dry tears. Holy Saturday is the silent embrace with which Christ presents all the creation to the Father to relieve it in his design of salvation ».
