Cycle of Catechesis – Jubilee 2025. Jesus Christ our Hope. III. The Passover of Jesus. 4. The surrender. ‘Whom are you looking for?’ (Jn 18:4)

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today we will focus on a scene that marks the beginning of the Passion of Jesus: the moment of his arrest in the Garden of Olives. The evangelist John, with his usual depth, does not present a frightened Jesus who flees or hides. On the contrary, he shows us a free man, who comes forward and speaks, openly facing the hour in which the light of the greatest love can be revealed.

“Jesus, knowing all that was to befall him, came forward and said to them, ‘Whom do you seek?’” (Jn  18:4). Jesus knows. However, he decides not to retreat. He gives himself up. Not out of weakness, but out of love. A love so full, so mature, that it does not fear rejection. Jesus is not seized: he lets himself be taken. He is not the victim of an arrest, but the giver of a gift. In this gesture, he embodies a hope of salvation for our humanity: to know that, even in the darkest hour, one can remain free to love to the end.

When Jesus replies, “I am he”, the soldiers fall to the ground. It is a mysterious passage, since this expression, in biblical revelation, recalls the very name of God: “I am”. Jesus reveals that God’s presence is manifested precisely where humanity experiences injustice, fear, loneliness. Right there, the true light is ready to shine without fear of being overcome by the advancing darkness.

In the middle of the night, when everything seems to be falling apart, Jesus shows that Christian hope is not evasion, but decision. This attitude is the result of profound prayer in which God is not asked to spare us from suffering, but rather to give us the strength to persevere in love, knowing that life offered freely for love cannot be taken away by anyone.

“If you seek me, let these men go” (Jn  18:8). At the time of his arrest, Jesus does not worry about saving himself: he wishes only for his friends to go free. This shows that his sacrifice is a true act of love. Jesus lets himself be taken and imprisoned by the guards only so that his disciples may be set free.

Jesus lived every day of his life as preparation for this dramatic and sublime hour. This is why when it comes, he has the strength not to seek an escape route. His heart knows well that to lose one’s life for love is not a failure, but rather  a mysterious fruitfulness, like a grain of wheat that falls to the ground and does not remain alone, but dies and becomes fruitful.

.Jesus too is troubled when faced with a path that seems to lead only to death and to the end. But he is equally persuaded that only a life lost for love, at the end, is found again. This is what true hope consists of: not in trying to avoid pain, but in believing that  the seed of new life is hidden, even in the heart of the most unjust suffering.

And us? How often do we defend our lives, our plans, our certainties, without realizing that, by doing so, we remain alone? The logic of the Gospel is different: only what is given flourishes; only the love that becomes free can restore trust even where everything seems lost.

The Gospel of Mark also tells us about a young man who runs away naked  when Jesus is arrested, (cf. Mk  14:51). It is an enigmatic image, but profoundly evocative. We too, in the attempt to follow Jesus, experience moments in which we are caught off guard and stripped of our certainties. Those are the most difficult moments, in which we are tempted to abandon the way of the Gospel because love seems to be an impossible journey to us. And yet, at the end of the Gospel, it is a young man who announces the resurrection to the women. He is no longer naked, but clothed in a white robe.

This is the hope of our faith: our sins and our hesitations do not prevent God from forgiving us and from restoring to us the desire to resume following, to make us capable of giving our life for others.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us also learn how to deliver ourselves to the Father’s good will, letting our life be a response to the good we have received. In life, it is not necessary to have everything under control. It is enough to choose to love freely every day. This is true hope: knowing that, even in the darkness of trial, God’s love sustains us and ripens the fruit of eternal life in us.

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APPEAL

Last Friday we accompanied our brothers and sisters who are suffering because of wars,  with prayer and fasting. I once again issue a strong appeal to the parties involved as well as to the international community, so that an end may be put to the conflict in the Holy Land, which has caused so much terror, destruction, and death.

I implore that all the hostages be freed, that a permanent ceasefire be reached, that the safe entry of humanitarian aid be facilitated, and that humanitarian law be fully respected, especially the obligation to protect civilians as well as prohibitions of collective punishment, indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of the population. I join the joint Declaration of the Greek-Orthodox Patriarch and the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who yesterday asked “to put an end to this spiral of violence, to end the war, and to prioritize people’s common good”.

Let us implore Mary, Queen of Peace, source of consolation and hope: may her intercession obtain reconciliation and peace in that land which is so dear to us all!

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Greeting:

I am happy to welcome, this morning, the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors, especially those from England, Ireland, Scotland, Malta, South Africa, Indonesia, Taiwan, Timor-Leste, Vietnam, Canada and the United States of America.  With prayerful good wishes that the present Jubilee of Hope may be for you and your families a time of grace and spiritual renewal, I invoke upon you all the joy and the peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Summary of Catechesis:

Dear brothers and sisters, in our continuing catechesis on the Jubilee theme of “Christ our Hope,” today we consider the freedom and determination shown by Jesus at the moment of his arrest in the Garden of Olives.  Our Lord approaches his coming passion freely and consciously, in obedience to the will of the Father and as an act of redemptive love.  In this way, he reveals the essence of true hope: the firm conviction that even in the midst of violence, injustice and suffering, God’s love is ever present as a source of spiritual fruitfulness and the promise of eternal life.  The way that Jesus exercised his freedom in the face of death teaches us not to fear suffering, but to persevere in confident trust in God’s providential care.  May our lives always be marked by this hope, born of the knowledge that if we surrender to God’s will and freely give our lives in love for others, the Father’s grace will sustain us in every trial and enable us to bear abundant fruit for the salvation of our brothers and sisters.

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L'Osservatore Romano