Full text: Read here the catechesis of the general audience on Wednesday of Pope Leo XIV

The Holy Father Leo XIV started on Wednesday a new cycle of catechesis about the mystery of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. Read here the full text of the general audience on Wednesday.

Dear brothers and sisters,

We continue our path to the discovery of the face of Christ, in which our hope takes shape and consistency. Today we begin to reflect on the mystery of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Let’s start by meditating a word that seems simple, but that guard a precious secret of Christian life: prepare.

In Marcos’s Gospel it is said that “the first day of the Fiesta de los Panes Acimos, when the Easter victim was immolated, the disciples told Jesus:” Where do you want us to prepare the Pascual food? “(Mc 14,12). It is a practical question, but also loaded with expectation.

The disciples intuit that something important is about to happen, but they do not know the details. Jesus’ response seems almost an enigma: «They go to the city; There they will meet a man who carries a water pitcher. ” (v. 13). The details become symbolic: a man who wears a pitcher – usually female at that time -, a room on the upper floor already prepared, an owner of the unknown house. It is as if all things had been prepared in advance.

In fact, it is. In this episode, the Gospel reveals that love is not the result of chance, but of a conscious choice. It is not a simple reaction, but a decision that requires preparation. Jesus does not face his passion for fatality, but for fidelity to a welcomed and traveled path with freedom and care.

This is what comforts us: knowing that the gift of his life is born from a deep intention, not from a sudden impulse.

That “room on the upper floor already prepared” tells us that God always precedes us. Even before we realize that we need reception, the Lord has already prepared for us a space where we recognize and feel his friends. This place is, deep down, our heart: a “room” that may seem empty, but that only expects to be recognized, filled and guarded.

Easter, which the disciples must prepare, is actually prepared in the heart of Jesus. It is he who has thought about everything, willing everything, determined everything. However, he asks his friends to do their part. This teaches us something essential for our spiritual life: grace does not eliminate our freedom, but awakens it.

The gift of God does not annul our responsibility, but makes it fruitful. Today, as then, there is a dinner to prepare. It is not just the liturgy, but of our availability to enter into a gesture that surpasses us. The Eucharist is not celebrated only at the altar, but also in everyday life, where it is possible to live everything as an offering and thanksgiving.

Prepare to celebrate this thanksgiving does not mean making more, but to leave space. It means removing what it hinders, lowering claims, stop growing unreal expectations. Too often, in fact, we confuse preparations with illusions. Illusions distract us, the preparations guide us. Illusions look for a result, preparations make a meeting possible.

True love – the Gospel remembers us – occurs even before being reciprocated. It is an anticipated don.

It is not based on what it receives, but on what you want to offer. It is what Jesus lived with his people: while they still did not understand, while one was about to betray him and another to deny him, he prepared a communion dinner for all.

Dear brothers and sisters, we are also invited to “prepare the Easter” of the Lord. Not only liturgical, but also that of our life. Each gesture of availability, each free act, every forgiveness offered in advance, each effort accepted with patience is a way of preparing a place where God can inhabit.

We can then ask ourselves: What spaces in my life do I need to rearrange so that they are ready to welcome the Lord? What does it mean to me today “prepare”? Maybe giving up a claim, stop waiting for the other to change, take the first step. Maybe listen more, work less or learn to trust what is already willing.

If we welcome the invitation to prepare the place of communion with God and among us, we discover that we are surrounded by signs, encounters, words that guide us towards that room, spacious and already prepared, in which the mystery of an infinite love is incessantly celebrated, which sustains us and always precedes us. That the Lord grants us to be humble trainers of his presence.

And, in this daily availability, also grow in us that serene trust that allows us to face everything with a free heart. Because where love has prepared, life can really bloom.