Month: April 2025

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The hope Christians have is not a sign of avoiding reality but of trusting in the power of God to defeat sin and death as the resurrection of Jesus clearly shows, Pope Francis wrote in his Easter message.

“All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey,” said the message, read before Pope Francis gave his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) April 20.

The pope’s voice was weak, as it has been since he was released from the hospital March 23, and he barely raised his arms as he made the sign of the cross, but the tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square were appreciative and clapped loudly after saying, “Amen.”

“Together with the risen Jesus,” he wrote in his message, those who trust in God “become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of life.”

The 88-year-old pope, who is still recovering from pneumonia, was not present at the Easter morning Mass in St. Peter’s Square but arrived shortly after noon to give the solemn blessing.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance and his family did not attend the Mass either, but Vance arrived at the Vatican at about 11:30 a.m. for a private meeting with Pope Francis in the papal residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae. The Vatican said the meeting lasted just a few minutes and allowed the two to exchange Easter greetings.

Vance had met April 19 with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and with Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister. The Vatican said they discussed efforts to defend religious freedom as well as the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees and prisoners.”

Security in and around St. Peter’s Square was tight. Just outside the square, an Italian army officer manned a large anti-drone gun, which he said uses electromagnetic pulses to disable the drone operator’s ability to control it.

With his voice still weak, Pope Francis wished everyone a Happy Easter and then asked his master of liturgical ceremonies, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, to read his message, which insisted that “Easter is the celebration of life!”

“God created us for life and wants the human family to rise again,” he wrote. “In his eyes, every life is precious! The life of a child in the mother’s womb, as well as the lives of the elderly and the sick, who in more and more countries are looked upon as people to be discarded.”

Pope Francis condemned the “great thirst for death” seen in violence and wars around the world and in the “contempt” people, including government leaders, direct toward “the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants!”

As is traditional for the message, the pope also prayed for peace in war-torn nations, mentioning by name: Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, Congo and Myanmar.

Pope Francis condemned “the growing climate of antisemitism throughout the world.” But he also called attention to “the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.”

“I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace,” the papal message said.

Pope Francis had chosen Cardinal Angelo Comastri, retired archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, to be his delegate to preside over the morning Mass and read his homily.

Some 50,000 tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, roses and other flowers and bushes decorated the steps leading up to St. Peter’s Basilica while garlands framed the main entrance to the atrium of the basilica and adorned the central balcony.

Because Easter fell on the same day on the Julian and Gregorian calendars, meaning Catholic and Orthodox were celebrating on the same day, the Vatican added Byzantine “stichera” or hymns and “stichos” or Psalm verses after the chanting of the Gospel in Latin and in Greek.

The homily the pope prepared focused on the Easter Gospel’s description of Mary Magdalene running to tells the disciples that Jesus had risen and Peter and John running to verify the news.

Running, the pope wrote, “expresses the desire, the yearning of the heart, the inner attitude of those who set out to search for Jesus.”

And because he has risen from the dead, people must look for Jesus in someplace other than the tomb, the pope’s text said.

“We must take action, set out to look for him: look for him in life, look for him in the faces of our brothers and sisters,” he said. “We must look for him without ceasing. 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.”

Jesus “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,” Pope Francis wrote.

After the Mass, the Easter blessing, Pope Francis got in the popemobile and rode around St. Peter’s Square, waving to the crowd and blessing babies.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – As the lights of St. Peter’s Basilica were extinguished and silence settled through the sprawling interior, a single flame — the paschal candle — pierced through the gloom, representing the light of the risen Christ which “quietly shines forth, even though we are in darkness,” Pope Francis said.

Before the wounds of selfishness and violence present throughout the world, “the promise of new life and a world finally set free awaits us; and a new beginning, however impossible it might seem, can take us by surprise, for Christ has triumphed over death,” he wrote in his prepared homily for the Easter Vigil at the Vatican April 19.

The pope, still recovering from respiratory infections, did not attend the Mass but he made an appearance in the basilica earlier in the day to pray, and upon exiting, he greeted a group of pilgrims from Pittsburgh present there. His homily at the Easter Vigil was read by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals.

The vigil began in the atrium of the basilica with the blessing of the fire and lighting of the paschal candle. A deacon carried the candle into the darkened church, chanting “lumen Christi” (“the light of Christ”) three times, to which the congregation responded, “Deo gratias” (“thanks be to God”). As the flame was shared among the faithful, candles throughout the basilica were lit and the lights gradually rose.

After the clergy — 34 cardinals, 24 bishops and 260 concelebrating priests — processed to the altar, the Exsultet, the solemn Easter proclamation, was sung by Deacon Nicholas Monnin, a seminarian from the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

In the Exsultet, the deacon invited all of creation to rejoice in the light of Christ, a theme echoed in the pope’s homily.

“The light of the Resurrection illumines our path one step at a time; quietly, it breaks through the darkness of history and shines in our hearts, calling for the response of a humble faith, devoid of all triumphalism,” Pope Francis wrote.

The pope acknowledged that the Resurrection does not erase the suffering of the world but enters into it. “We cannot celebrate Easter without continuing to deal with the nights that dwell in our hearts and the shadows of death that so often loom over our world,” he said in his written message.

“Christ indeed conquered sin and destroyed death,” he wrote. “Yet in our earthly history the power of his Resurrection is still being brought to fulfilment. And that fulfilment, like a small seed of light, has been entrusted to us, to protect it and to make it grow.”

During the Mass, Cardinal Re baptized three catechumens: two Italians and one Albanian. He also confirmed them and gave them their first Communion.

In his homily, the pope emphasized that the Resurrection is not a private consolation but a call to witness for all Christians.

Through small, everyday actions and decisions inspired by the Gospel “our whole life can be a presence of hope,” he wrote. “We want to be that presence for those who lack faith in the Lord, for those who have lost their way, for those who have given up or are weighed down by life; for those who are alone or overwhelmed by their sufferings; for all the poor and oppressed in our world; for the many women who are humiliated and killed; for the unborn and for children who are mistreated; and for the victims of war.”

“In the risen Jesus,” the pope added, “we have the certainty that our personal history and that of our human family, albeit still immersed in a dark night where lights seem distant and dim, are nonetheless in God’s hands.”

The Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis said, is a time for renewed faith and action for Christians. “We should feel strongly within us the summons to let the hope of Easter blossom in our lives and in the world!”

“Let us make room for the light of the risen Lord,” he wrote, “and we will become builders of hope for the world.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Against the backdrop of deep differences with the Trump administration over migration and foreign aid as well as concerns for Ukraine and for Gaza, the Vatican secretary of state welcomed U.S. Vice President JD Vance to the Vatican.

Vance met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and with Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister, April 19 in the Apostolic Palace.

A Vatican statement said areas of agreement, such as the defense of religious freedom, as well as the areas of tension with the Trump administration were discussed.

“There was an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees and prisoners,” the Vatican statement said.

While “other issues of mutual interest were also discussed,” the Vatican said that “hope was expressed for serene collaboration between the State and the Catholic Church in the United States, whose valuable service to the most vulnerable people was acknowledged.”

The vice president arrived at the Vatican with his wife, Usha, and three children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel. Cardinal Parolin greeted all of them before holding talks with Vance and his entourage.

Vance was in Rome for talks with the Italian government and, with his family, was visiting tourist sites in the city and participating in Holy Week and Easter services. The Vance family attended the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s Basilica April 18 and was expected to attend Easter morning Mass in St. Peter’s Square April 20.

A quick encounter with Pope Francis was possible Easter morning but was not scheduled officially as the pope continues to recover after a long hospitalization.

The pope, in a letter to U.S. bishops in early February, strongly supported their traditional assistance to migrants and refugees and criticized threats and policies of “mass deportations” announced by Trump and vigorously defended by Vance.

Pope Francis had described Trump’s immigration policy as a “major crisis.”

Every nation has the right to defend itself and keep its communities safe “from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival,” the pope had written. However, “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”

In a January interview, Vance, who joined the Catholic Church in 2019, questioned the motives of the U.S. bishops’ criticism of Trump’s immigration policies, suggesting their objection to the suspension of a federal refugee resettlement program had to do with “their bottom line.”

The pope and the U.S. bishops noted that helping the stranger is a Gospel tenet and, the bishops said, their work with refugees cost more than the government grants covered.

Pope Francis’ February letter also responded to an assertion Vance made in a Fox News interview about the Catholic concept of “ordo amoris” (the order of love or charity).

The concept, Vance said, teaches that “you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”

However, the pope said, “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings!”

In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica April 18, Cardinal Parolin said the Vatican supported approaching global problems with “multilateralism and a policy based on cooperation among states, international law and diplomacy, rather than on opposition and the logic of power.”

Asked about the Trump administration’s growing frustration at not ending Russia’s war on Ukraine, a frustration that seems focused on Ukraine’s unwillingness to cede territory, Cardinal Parolin responded, “As Pope Francis has repeatedly reminded us, peace cannot be imposed, it is built patiently, day after day, through dialogue and mutual respect.”

At the same time, the cardinal said, “anything that promotes a just and lasting peace is to be considered helpful.”

Cardinal Parolin also was asked about Israel’s continuing bombardment of Gaza and Trump’s remarks that Palestinians whose homes have been destroyed in Gaza should be resettled elsewhere and the territory turned into a “Riviera.”

“For the Holy See,” the cardinal said, “the principles of the social doctrine of the church remain clear: Self-defense is lawful, but it can never imply the total or partial annihilation of another people or the denial of their right to live in their own land.”

ROME (CNS) – Today’s “builders of Babel” are constructing a hell on earth, rejecting everyone they decide are “losers,” Pope Francis wrote in the meditations for the Way of the Cross.

“Your way, Jesus, is the way of the Beatitudes. It does not crush, but cultivates, repairs and protects,” the pope wrote for the nighttime ceremony April 18 in Rome’s Colosseum.

“Today’s builders of Babel tell us that there is no room for losers, and that those who fall along the way are losers. Theirs is the construction site of hell,” he wrote. “God’s economy, on the other hand, does not kill, discard or crush. It is lowly, faithful to the earth.”

Each year, the pope usually chooses a different person or group of people to write the series of prayers and reflections that are read aloud for each of the 14 stations, which commemorate Christ’s condemnation, his carrying the cross to Golgotha, his crucifixion and his burial. However, the pope himself wrote the commentaries and prayers for the Holy Year this year like he did for last year’s Year of Prayer.

For the third year in a row, Pope Francis was scheduled to follow the nighttime Way of the Cross service from his Vatican residence for health reasons as an expected 25,000 people gathered outside the ancient amphitheater.

Cardinal Baldassare Reina, papal vicar of Rome, was designated to fill in for the pope, presiding over the Good Friday ceremony and offering the final blessing at the end. Representatives of different groups were to take turns carrying a bare wooden cross, including: migrants, young people, people with disabilities, volunteers, charity workers, educators and members of “Ordo Viduarum,” a group of widows who serve the church.

The pope’s commentaries and prayers this year looked at how “the road to Calvary passes through the streets we tread each day.”

Jesus came to change the world and, “for us, that means changing direction, seeing the goodness of your path, letting the memory of your glance transform our hearts,” he wrote in his introduction.

“We need only hear his invitation: ‘Come! Follow me!’ And trust in that gaze of love,” and from there “everything blossoms anew,” he wrote, and places torn by conflict can move toward reconciliation, and “a heart of stone can turn into a heart of flesh.”

For the first station, “Jesus is condemned to death,” the pope highlighted how Jesus respects human freedom and trusts everyone by placing himself “in our hands.”

Pilate could have freed Jesus, but “he chose not to,” the pope wrote, asking the faithful to reflect on how “we have been prisoners of the roles we choose to continue playing, fearful of the challenge of a change in the direction of our lives.”

“We can learn marvelous lessons from this: how to free those unjustly accused, how to acknowledge the complexity of situations, how to protest lethal judgments,” the pope wrote, because it is Jesus who is “silently standing before us, in every one of our sisters and brothers exposed to judgment and bigotry.”

“Religious disputes, legal quibbles, the so-called common sense that keeps us from getting involved in the fate of others: a thousand reasons drag us to the side of Herod, the priests, Pilate and the crowd. Yet, it could be otherwise,” he wrote.

For the second station, “Jesus carries his cross,” the pope wrote that the bigger burden is trying to avoid the cross and evade responsibility.

“All we need to do,” he wrote, “is to stop running away and to remain in the company of those you have given us, to bind ourselves to them, recognizing that only in this way can we stop being prisoners of ourselves.”

“Selfishness burdens us more than the cross. Indifference burdens us more than sharing,” the pope wrote.

For the seventh station, “Jesus falls the second time,” the pope underlined how Jesus was not afraid to stumble and fall.

“All those who are embarrassed by this, those who want to appear infallible, who hide their own falls yet refuse to pardon those of others, reject the path that you chose,” he wrote.

“In you, all of us were found and brought home, like the one sheep that had gone astray,” his meditation said.

“An economy in which the ninety-nine are more important than the one is inhumane. Yet we have built a world that works like that: a world of calculation and algorithms, of cold logic and implacable interests,” he wrote.

However, he wrote, “when we turn our hearts to you, who fall and rise again, we experience a change of course and a change of pace. A conversion that restores our joy and brings us safely home.”

In his prayer for the 11th station, “Jesus is nailed to the cross,” the pope asked that people pray to God to “teach us to love” when “we are bound by unjust laws or decisions,” when “we are at odds with those uninterested in truth and justice, and when everyone says, “There is nothing to be done.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Jesus, who redeemed humanity by giving up his life on the cross, shows that it is not strength that saves the world, but the “weakness” of boundless love, the papal preacher told thousands of people gathered for the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, including U.S. Vice President JD Vance.

Today’s world, which is “marked by the myth of performance and seduced by the idol of individualism, struggles to recognize moments of defeat or passivity as possible places of fulfillment,” Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini, preacher of the papal household, said in his homily April 18 in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Good Friday service, which commemorates Christ’s passion and death on the cross, was presided over by Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches. But, following tradition, the homily was delivered by the preacher of the papal household.

Pope Francis, who was not present at the service, had asked different cardinals to lead the different liturgical events over Holy Week and Easter as he continues to recover from double pneumonia and a lengthy hospitalization.

Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, attended the liturgy with his wife, Usha, a practicing Hindu, and his three children after meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earlier in the day. He was in Rome for private talks with Italian and Vatican officials; he was scheduled to meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, April 19.

In a post on X April 18 before the liturgy, the vice president said, “I’m grateful every day for this job, but particularly today where my official duties have brought me to Rome on Good Friday.”

“I had a great meeting with Prime Minister Meloni and her team, and will head to church soon with my family in this beautiful city. I wish all Christians all over the world, but particularly those back home in the US, a blessed Good Friday. He died so that we might live,” Vance wrote.

In his homily, Father Pasolini said that Jesus, nailed to the cross and stripped of everything, “chooses to give us his life and his Spirit entirely. It is not a passive surrender, but an act of supreme freedom, accepting weakness as the place where love can become full.”

“It is not autonomy or great feats that give meaning to life, but the ability to transform limitations into an opportunity for giving. With this gesture, Jesus reveals to us that it is not strength that saves the world, but the weakness of love that holds nothing back and surrenders itself,” he said.

The priest explained the importance of contemplating and venerating the cross during the liturgy as an opportunity to renew one’s trust “in the way God chose to save the world” and in recognizing the cross is “the only possible direction of our lives.”

“We know well that our strength will not be sufficient to accomplish this journey, but the Holy Spirit, who has already filled our hearts with sweet hope, will come to the aid of our weakness to remind us of the most important thing: Just as we have been loved, so we will be able to love — friends and even enemies,” he said.

“When pain, fatigue, loneliness or fear lay us bare, we are all tempted to shut down, to stiffen up, to feign self-sufficiency,” he said. Yet it is during those moments that the truest love becomes possible, when one does not impose oneself, but allows oneself to be helped.

“Asking for what we need, and allowing others to offer it to us, is perhaps one of the highest and most humble forms of love,” Father Pasolini said.

“To do so, we need only to abandon all pride, but also all illusions that we can save ourselves with our own strength. And to recognize that we cannot, and, above all, do not want to live all on our own,” he said.

ROME (CNS) – While he did not celebrate Mass or wash the feet of inmates, Pope Francis made his customary Holy Thursday visit to a detention facility, arriving at Rome’s Regina Coeli jail at about 3 p.m. April 17.

The pope was welcomed by Claudia Clementi, the jail’s director, and met with about 70 inmates in the building’s rotunda, a space where various wings of the jail intersect. The inmates who joined the pope are those who regularly participate in the jail’s religious education program, the Vatican press office said.

In 2018 the pope had celebrated the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper at Regina Coeli, which is less than a mile from the Vatican. But his continuing convalescence, after spending more than a month in the hospital, meant there was no Mass or foot washing ritual.

Pope Francis told the inmates, “Every year I like to do what Jesus did on Holy Thursday, washing feet, in a prison,” the Vatican said. “This year I cannot do it, but I can and want to be close to you. I pray for you and your families.”

The pope personally greeted each of the people in the rotonda, prayed the Lord’s Prayer with them and gave his blessing.

Vatican photos of the visit also show him in the prison yard waving at inmates looking out the barred windows of their cells and waving from the rotonda to inmates pressed together against an iron and glass door hoping to see him.

The Italian Ministry of Justice website said that as of April 16, there were 1,098 men detained in the jail awaiting trial or sentencing. The facility is designed to hold fewer than 700 prisoners.

As he left the prison, sitting in the front passenger seat of a small car, he stopped to speak to reporters and told them, “Every time I enter these doors, I ask myself, ‘Why them and not me?'”

He has explained on several occasions that all people are sinners, himself included, but grace, providence, family upbringing and other factors play a determining role.

Pope Francis, who was elected in 2013, has continued a Holy Thursday practice he began as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina: usually celebrating the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at a prison or detention facility and washing the feet of inmates.

In his first year as pope, he set aside the usual papal practice of washing the feet of 12 priests during a public celebration of the Holy Thursday Mass by going to a juvenile detention facility and washing the feet of Catholic and non-Catholic teens. He returned to the same jail in 2023 to wash the feet of young men and women.

In 2014, he washed the feet of people with severe physical handicaps at a rehabilitation center, and in 2016, he celebrated the liturgy and foot-washing ritual at a center for migrants and refugees.

On Holy Thursday in 2020, the COVID lockdown led the pope to celebrate the Mass at the Vatican with a small congregation and omit the optional foot-washing ritual.

Pope Francis also has celebrated the Mass at prisons outside Rome — in the towns of Paliano, Velletri and Civitavecchia.

After the pope’s “private” visit to Regina Coeli, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, celebrated the basilica’s parish Mass of the Lord’s Supper.

Bishop Bambera’s 2025 Easter Message

Dear Friends,

“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.”

These words from Saint Luke proclaimed this year during the great Vigil of Easter, point to the foundation of our hope as Christians. They are words that beckon us forth – just as they did for the first followers of Jesus – to confront the reality of His resurrection and the miracle of Easter.

They are also words that have endured for two millennia and have provided consolation and peace for all who have turned to the Church to encounter God’s mercy and to find a way forward amid a broken, suffering world.

Sadly, however, not unlike the experience of the early Church, for all that we affirm as Christians, life continues to confront us with suffering and death. We have only to look to the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, to lands around the globe that are enveloped by political unrest and disrespect for human life, to our own country fraught with division, fear and hatred, not to mention to the grief and pain that we so often experience in our families and personal lives. The scope of suffering that is present throughout our world is incomprehensible.

Yet, despite the burdens that are borne by so many, if we are humble and wise enough to open our lives to the power of God, every one of us can point to the life-giving presence of the Risen One in our midst.

Indeed, in announcing the Jubilee Year of Hope that we’re blessed to experience this year, Pope Francis invited us to focus on the miracle of Easter.

“The death and resurrection of Jesus,” he proclaimed, “is the heart of our faith and the very basis of our hope” as Christians.

As such, in as much as we are the blessed recipients of this hope, Jesus’ gift of Himself on the cross also becomes a pattern for our lives as His disciples.

“During this Holy Year,” the Holy Father has reminded us, “we are also called to be signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.” … Don’t underestimate “the value of a smile, a gesture of friendship, a kind look, a ready ear, a good deed, in the knowledge that, in the Spirit of the risen Jesus, these can become, for those who receive them, rich seeds of hope” – signs of the resurrection!

God’s power to transform our lives abounds. The sublime gift of God’s love, manifested through the Paschal Mystery, turns the logic of our world upside down. And the Church, the body of believers in and through which the risen Christ is present in our world, continues to be our greatest hope – not because of our righteousness but because of the wideness of God’s mercy.

One of the greatest signs of the Church’s credibility is the presence of those who have responded to the Lord’s call and opened their hearts to the life-giving waters of Baptism and a renewed sense of determination to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

On Holy Saturday night, 215 catechumens and candidates from throughout the Diocese of Scranton will be baptized into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and present themselves for full communion in the Catholic Church. These catechumens and candidates – our relatives, neighbors and friends – will join with tens of thousands of catechumens and candidates from around the world to publicly profess their faith in Jesus Christ and to assume their place in his body, the Church. Their very presence in our midst affirms the reality of the living God continually at work in and through his daughters and sons who proclaim his word, experience his life in the sacraments and live his gospel in humble service.

Sisters and brothers, we are blessed beyond measure by the merciful presence of God alive in our midst. Thank you for your dedicated service to the Gospel and for all that you do to build up the local Church of Scranton and to care for one another in the spirit of the Risen Christ. Your faithful and selfless ways, your prayers and your service of the least among us are visible signs to our world that Christ’s presence has indeed been made manifest through the communion of love, which is our Church.

As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus – the great feast of our redemption and our reason for hope – may we give thanks, rejoice and be glad!

Faithfully yours in the Risen Christ,

 

Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, D.D., J.C.L.

Bishop of Scranton

SCRANTON — As many of the more than 170 active and retired priests and nearly 100 permanent deacons who serve the Diocese of Scranton made their way in procession to the Cathedral of Saint Peter for this year’s traditional Pontifical Mass of the Sacred Chrism on the Tuesday of Holy Week, the windy weather could have been likened to power of the Holy Spirit in their midst.

The heavens also looked kindly upon the processing clergy as rain showers gave way to sunny skies in time for their arrival at the venerable gathering.

As principal celebrant and homilist, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, warmly welcomed all to the Mother Church of the Diocese.

“What a blessing to see the Church of Scranton gathered from among all its members for this Mass of the Sacred Chrism,” Bishop Bambera expressed, referring to “my brother priests, our permanent deacons and their wives, Parish Life Coordinators and parish leaders, religious women and men, our seminarians, and especially so many of you from parishes throughout our eleven counties, particularly members of our young Church who are here today.”

The traditional Holy Week observance and gathering of the priests of the Diocese — customarily the largest of its kind each year — celebrates their clerical brotherhood and shared divine vocation.

During the Mass, priests and deacons, along with lay representatives from Diocesan parishes, acknowledged the Bishop’s role as the unifying symbol for Church governance and pastoral guidance.

All of the priests also recommitted themselves to their office by renewing the promises they made on their ordination day, including their vow of obedience to the Bishop.

The 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope proclaimed by His Holiness, Pope Francis, soon became the central theme of Bishop Bambera’s message.

“We profess today that ‘in the resurrection,’ we have indeed ‘been shown that God is powerful enough’ to give us reason to hope even when we are inclined to yield to despair,” the Bishop offered. “The Jubilee Year of Hope that we celebrate these days affirms this assertion in reminding all of us that hope for the Christian is not simply optimism, irrepressible idealism or wishful thinking. No, authentic hope is born solely of the resurrection of Jesus.”

Holding to ancient tradition, the Mass of the Sacred Chrism is highlighted by the blessing of the Holy Oils used during the conferral of sacraments throughout the Church year. They include the Oil of the Sick, and the Oil of Catechumens, which are used in the celebration of Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders, the Anointing of the Sick, and the Rites of the Catechumenate.

Father Stephen Brenyah, assistant pastor of the Dunmore parish communities of Saints Anthony & Rocco and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, said the Chrism Mass is reminiscent of Jesus’ gathering with his disciples on that first Holy Thursday night.

“Before He was crucified, Christ sat down at table with His disciples and gave them the power to anoint, heal, and celebrate the sacred mysteries,” Father Brenyah remarked. “Today, the Bishop blesses the holy oils and sends us out with the sacred chrism to heal and baptize.”

Bishop Bambera referred to the sacred oils as the vessels of God’s grace and pathways to “the very hope that we all seek.”

“My brother priests, we are charged in a unique way to be God’s instruments in bringing that grace and life to a suffering world,” he said. “From the very day of our priestly ordination, we were both set apart and immersed in the lives of God’s people to sow seeds of hope and peace.”

A retired priest of the Diocese, having been ordained 53 years ago, Father Joseph Kakareka still feels compelled to be present to concelebrate the annual Chrism Mass with the Bishop and his fellow priests.

“Having concelebrated at this Mass for decades, I feel it is very important to be here year after year because it is just so meaningful to me,” Father Kakareka noted.
For Father Brian J.W. Clarke, V.F., pastor of Most Holy Trinity Parish in Cresco, the solemn yet jubilant day is something he looks forward to with great anticipation.

“It is such an honor and pleasure to be with my brother priests, many of whom I otherwise don’t get to see during the year,” Father Clarke shared. “The renewal of our priestly vows is so special, and such a beautiful way to enter into our Holy Week.”

Below is the following schedule for broadcast Masses from the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton, Vatican, and Washington D.C., for the Sacred Paschal Triduum.

SCRANTON – Only a slight breeze was blowing in the Cathedral Prayer Garden April 13, 2025, as the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, began Palm Sunday Mass with a blessing of the palms, surrounded by a crowd of faithful who held branches of their own.

With palms in hand, the congregation joined the Bishop in a procession into the Cathedral of Saint Peter, reenacting Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. It was a symbolic start to Holy Week, marking the beginning of a journey that would move from celebration to the solemn remembrance of Jesus’ death.

Following the proclamation of the Passion from the Gospel of Luke, Bishop Bambera invited the faithful deeper – beyond the palm branches – into the very heart of the Cross.

The Bishop opened his homily with a historical reflection: the story of Emperor Heraclius, who, in the 7th century, recaptured the relic of the True Cross of Christ from Persia and sought to return it to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Clothed in royal splendor – gold and jewels – Heraclius found himself unable to move forward through the gates of Calvary. It wasn’t until he removed his lavish garments that he could carry the relic to its rightful place.

Drawing from the writings of Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, longtime preacher to the papal household, the Bishop then reminded the faithful that none of us can approach the Cross while clinging to pride or self-importance.

“We cannot possibly draw near to the crucifix unless we first get rid of our pretensions to greatness, to our rights, and, in other words, to our pride and vanity,” the Bishop quoted. “It is simply not possible. We would be invisibly rejected.”

Just as the celebrant removes his shoes and vestments before venerating the Cross on Good Friday, so too must every Christian spiritually strip away the layers of ego and self-reliance.

“Only when we are finally humble enough to admit that we cannot save ourselves,” the Bishop said, “will there be space in our hearts for the love of Jesus – a love that alone has the power to carry us to a place of life and peace.”

As Holy Week begins, Bishop Bambera urged the faithful to not simply observe the coming days but enter fully into them.

“For all that we bring (to Holy Week), may we not forget to enter these sacred days praying for the same spirit of humility that characterized Jesus’ life and His embrace of the Cross.”