In the midst of the pandemic we are living through, Holy Week breaks out and, after it, the Easter season. In his general audience on Wednesday, April 8, the Pope accompanies, prepares and advises us, while at the same time announcing and confirming our faith. To help us, he asks questions that we may ask ourselves in times of crisis: Where is God now? Why does he allow suffering? Why doesn't he solve our problems quickly?

Even the people who welcomed Jesus triumphantly at his entrance in Jerusalem, Francis observes, wondered whether he would deliver the people from their enemies (cf. Lk 24:21). They expected a Messiah who would be powerful and triumphant with the sword. Instead, a meek and humble one comes to them who calls for conversion and mercy. And, curiously, the same people who had acclaimed him will later ask that he be crucified (cf. Mt 27:23), while those who followed him abandon him in confusion and fear. 

Human logic and act of faith

So it is, and this, what we could call the first scene, presents us with the "human logic"; expressed in the words of Francis: "if the fate of Jesus is like this, the Messiah is not Him, because God is strong, God is invincible".

But, Francis continues, there is another surprising scene, at the end of the Passion narrative. When, at the death of Jesus, the Roman centurion, who was not a believer - he was not a Jew, but a pagan - after seeing him suffer on the cross and hearing that he had forgiven everyone, that is, after having felt his love without measure, confesses: "Truly this man was the Son of God" (Mk 15:39). The centurion says just the opposite of the others: "He says that God is there, that he is true God". In fact, he does not say that Jesus is the "Messiah," because he had no such expectation, but he recognizes him as the true God.

After showing us these two scenes, the scene of human logic and that of the centurion's act of faith, the Pope turns to us and invites us to ask ourselves today, "What is the true face of God?" That is, what is God truly like, not as we imagine him to be, but what is he really like.

The truth is that we also function with a purely human logic: "We habitually project on Him what we are, to the maximum power: our success, our sense of justice, and even our indignation". And when we open the Gospel we see that God is not like that. That is, God is different from what we imagine him to be, and we cannot know him with our own strength.

For this reason - as the Gospel sample tells us - God became close to us, he came to us meeting in Jesus. And precisely at Easter - in that "first Holy Week" in which he suffered and died for us on the cross and rose again - he revealed himself completely. And where - Francis asks - did he reveal himself completely? On the cross.

The crucifix and the Gospel

"There - on the cross - we learn the features of the face of God. Let us not forget, brothers and sisters, that the cross is the Chair of God."

That is why Francis proposes: "It will do us good to look at the Crucifix in silence and see who our Lord is". And he goes on to explain who and how God really is:

"It is He who points the finger against no one, not even against those who are crucifying Him, but opens His arms to all; who does not crush us with His glory, but allows Himself to be stripped by us; who does not love us with words, but gives us life in silence; who does not force us, but frees us; who does not treat us as strangers, but bears our evil, bears our sins." So, in order to free ourselves from prejudices about God, let us first of all look to the Crucifix."

And then - Francis advises us - let us open the Gospel. A wise man committee: "In these days, all of us in quarantine and at home, locked up, let us take these two things in our hands: the Crucifix, let us look at it; and let us open the Gospel. That will be for us - let us say so - like a great domestic liturgy, because these days we cannot go to church. Crucifix and Gospel!".

Reading this, a point from The Way came to my mind, when he points out the means to walk in following Jesus and helping others to follow him: "But.... And the means? -They are the same as those of Peter and Paul, of Dominic and Francis, of Ignatius and Xavier: the Crucifix and the Gospel? -Do they seem small to you?" (n. 470).           

God omnipotent in love

But let us return to the Pope's argumentation, aimed above all at showing us who and how God really is, his real identity. He goes back over the two scenes we were referring to: human logic and the leap of faith.

How does Jesus react to human logic? Jesus wants us to detach ourselves from our "logic", from our simply human interpretation. "In the Gospel we read that when people go to Jesus to make him king, for example after the multiplication of the loaves, he goes away (cf. Jn 6:15). And when the devils wanted to reveal his divine majesty, he silenced them (cf. Mk 1:24-25)". Why, Francis asks.

"Because," he replies, "Jesus does not want to be misunderstood, he does not want people to confuse the true God, who is humble love, with a false god, a worldly god who puts on a show and imposes himself by force. He is not an idol. He is God who has become man, like each one of us, and expresses himself as man but with the strength of his divinity".

And then comes the contrast of the second scene, the leap of faith. When is the identity of Jesus solemnly proclaimed in the Gospel? When the centurion says: "Truly he was the Son of God". It is a proclamation of faith, seeing the submission of Jesus on the cross, so that we can no longer be mistaken: And this is the conclusion: "It is seen that God is omnipotent in love, and not otherwise". It is His nature, He is like that and therefore He acts like that, He is Love.

Once again Francis returns to dialogue with us, and listen to our objections, especially in times of difficulty: "What do I do with such a weak God, who dies? I would prefer a strong God, a powerful God! (We continue in our human logic, because we think that only that "strength" and that "power" are what would solve dangers and illnesses, what would put an end to our problems, even prevent us from dying).

This "power" of God is different from what we imagine. Let us look at it slowly. To begin with, it is not the power of force but of love: "The power of this world passes away, while love remains. Only love preserves the life we have, because it embraces our frailties and transforms them". Indeed, and this is already true at the human level, if we think of the true love that we see concretely in times of epidemics: that of exposing one's life for others, on the part of many heroes and "saints next door," as Francis says.

But in addition, by bringing this love to its fullness and making it his own, the love of God in Jesus during Easter achieves results that go beyond any merely earthly horizon. It is a love that assumes all true love and opens it to a life that is more than human life and earthly life: "He cures our sin with his forgiveness, he makes death a step of life, he changes our fear into confidence, our anguish into hope".

Victory over evil and death

At final, Easter tells us that "God can turn everything into good. That with him we can truly trust that all will be well. And that is not an illusion - in the sense of mirroring - because Jesus' death and resurrection is not an illusion: it was a truth!"

That is why on Easter morning we are told: "Do not be afraid" (cf. Mt 28:5). The anguished questions about evil," Francis observes, "do not disappear all at once, but they find in the Risen One the solid foundation that allows us not to be shipwrecked.

And so Francis ends by showing us, first of all, what Jesus did, from which we know with certainty who God is and how he acts: "Jesus changed history by becoming close to us and made it, although still marked by evil, a history of salvation. By offering his life on the cross, Jesus also conquered death. From the open heart of the Crucified One, the love of God reaches each one of us".

And secondly, how we can act: "We can change our stories by approaching him, welcoming the salvation he offers us". Thus, he proposes for these days of Holy Week and Easter, and always, "let us open our whole heart to him in prayer (...): with the Crucifix and with the Gospel. Do not forget: Crucifix and Gospel". In this way we will understand that God does not abandon us, that we are not alone, but that we are loved, because the Lord never forgets us.

Jesus asks us to leave merely human logic and enter into the logic of faith. As the Pope says in a conversation with Austen Ivereigh (cf. "ABC" 8-IV-2020), now is the time to work as much as we can for others. It is not a time to lower our arms, but to serve with creativity. It is also a time to grow in the experience and reflection that can lead us to improve our attention to the most vulnerable, to promote a Economics that rethinks priorities, to an ecological conversion that revises our way of life, to reject the utilitarian culture of discarding, to rediscover that true progress can only be achieved through report, conversion and contemplation, counting on the dreams of the elderly and the prophecies - the testimonies and commitments - of the young.