On a palm Sunday where images of daily rubble and news of the emergency room bombed in Gaza arrive from the worldwhile the two fronts are reassured mutual accusations for the evacuation not arrived in time, and a Russian missile attack on Sumy in Northeast of Ukraine“With many dead” according to Ukrainian sources.
THEN A Palm Sunday in which the olive and dove symbols of peace seem very far from everyday life, the cry of pain of Pope Francis is raised, who, convalescent, entrusts the reading of the homily to Cardinal Leonardo Sandri: «QUanti Cirenei bring the cross of Christ! Do we recognize them? Let’s see the Lord in their faces, torn by war and misery? In front of the atrocious injustice of evil, bringing the cross of Christ is never vain, on the contrary, it is the most concrete way of sharing his saving love ».
Through the voice of others Pope Francis does not tire of invoking mercy as a road to mend the world torn by conflicts. “Benedict the one who comes, the king, in the name of the Lord”. This is how the crowd acclaims Jesus, while entering Jerusalem. The Messiah passes from the door of the Holy City, wide open to accommodate the one who a few days later will come out cursed and condemned, loaded with the cross. Today we too have followed Jesus, first with a festive procession and then on a painful street, inaugurating the Holy Week that prepares us to celebrate the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord. While we look, among the crowd, the faces of the soldiers and the tears of women, our attention is attracted by a stranger, whose name enters the Gospel suddenly: Simone Di Cirene. This man is taken by the soldiers, who “put the cross on him, to carry behind Jesus”. At that moment he came from the countryside, he passed through there, and came across an affair that overwhelms him, like the heavy wood on his shoulders ».
“While on the way to Calvary – observes Pope Francis -, we reflect a moment on Simone’s gesture, we seek his heart, we follow his step next to Jesus. First of all his gesture, which is so ambivalent. On the one hand, in fact, Cyrenaeus is obliged to bring the cross: it does not help Jesus by conviction, but by constraint. On the other, he finds himself participating in the first person in the passion of the Lord. The cross of Jesus becomes Simone’s cross. However, not of that Simone said Pietro who had promised to always follow the master. That Simone disappeared on the night of betrayal, after proclaiming: “Lord, with you I am ready to go to prison and death”. Behind Jesus does not walk the disciple now, but this Cyrenaeus. Yet the master had clearly taught: “If someone wants to come behind me, deny himself, take his cross every day and follow me”. Simone Di Galilea says, but does not do. Simone di Cirene Fa, but does not say: there is no dialogue between him and Jesus, a word is not pronounced. Between him and Jesus there is only the wood of the cross. To find out if the Cyrenaeus has rescued or detested the exhausted Jesus, with whom he must share the penalty, to understand if he brings or bears the cross, we must look at his heart. While the heart of God is about to open, pierced by a pain that reveals his mercy, the heart of man remains closed. We don’t know what you live in the heart of Cyreneo. Let’s put ourselves in his shoes: do we feel anger or pity, sadness or annoyance? If we remember what Simone did for Jesus, we also remember what Jesus did for Simone – as for me, for you, for each of us -: he redeemed the world. The wooden cross, which Cyreneo stands, is that of Christ, which brings the sin of all men. He brings him for our love, in obedience to the Father, suffering with us and for us ».
«This is precisely the unexpected and shocking way, with which Cyreneo is involved in the history of salvation, where no one is foreign, nobody is foreign. We then follow Simone’s passage, because he teaches us that Jesus meets everyone, in any situation. When we see the multitude of men and women who hate and violence they throw on the way of Calvary, let’s remember that God transforms this street instead of redemption, because he has traveled by giving his life for us. How many Cyrenei carry the cross of Christ! Do we recognize them? Let’s see the Lord in their faces, torn by war and misery? In front of the atrocious injustice of evil, bringing the cross of Christ is never vain, on the contrary, it is the most concrete way of sharing his saving love. The passion of Jesus becomes compassion when we tend to hand to those who no longer do it, when we lift who has fallen, when we embrace who is despair. Brothers, sisters, to experience this great miracle of mercy, we choose along the Holy Week how to bring the cross: not in the neck, but in the heart. Not only ours, but also that of those who suffer next to us; Maybe of that unknown person that the case – but is it really a coincidence? – He made us meet. Let’s get ready for the Easter of the Lord becoming Cyrenei for each other ».
