Scottish Catholic Observer

During his first Palm Sunday Mass as Pope, he told more than 250,000 pilgrims, and a watching world, that this Easter we should be alive to the humility of Jesus. Pope Francis said that Jesus ‘awakened so many hopes in the heart, above all among humble, simple, poor, forgotten people, those who don’t matter in the eyes of the world.’

On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis showed personal humility as Peter’s Successor when he travelled to a youth detention centre in Rome to celebrate Mass and wash the feet of a dozen young offenders (click here for more).

“As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Bergoglio used to celebrate Mass in a prison, hospital or hospice for the poor or marginalised,” a Vatican statement said. “With the choice to go to a prison for juvenile delinquency, Pope Francis has thus decided to continue this course.”

Before visiting the prison, Pope Francis celebrated a morning Chrism Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, and, earlier in the week, said that Catholics should heed the lesson of Judas’s betrayal of Christ.

“The emblem of the infinite patience that God has for man is reflected in the infinite patience that Jesus has for Judas,” the Pope said. “During Holy Week, we would do well to think of the patience of God, the patience that God has with each one of us, with our weaknesses, our sins.”

Today, Pope Francis will celebrate the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion in St Peter’s Basilica before leading a night time Way of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum, with meditations written by Lebanese Catholic youths, as previously requested by Pope Emertius Benedict XVI. Tomorrow, Pope Francis will preside over the Easter Vigil in St Peter’s Basilica before celebrating Easter Mass in St Peter’s Square and giving his blessing Urbi et Orbi—to the city of Rome and the world.

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— Vatican Holy Week news in full in the March 29 print edition of the SCO