Homily of Cardinal Leonardo Sandri at Mass for the fifth day of the novelty

Editor’s Note: On April 30, 2025, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri delivered the following homily during the fifth day of novel masses by Pope Francis. The following text is a translation of ACI Press from the original in Italian published by the Vatican.

Then the full homily:

1. Christ has risen! With even more emotion, in a celebration of suffrage like that of the novelty, we sing the Easter Hallelujah, that song that resonated in the voice of the deacon: «Messenger you have a great joy», Also in this Basilica that, moments before the vigil, had been visited by the Holy Father Francisco. Unconsciously, we believe, he prepared to cross another red sea, another night than the resurrection of Christ allows us to call blessed, the night of which it is said: «The night is like a day to be enlightened».

Within a few days, Cardinal Protodiácono will use a similar formula, announcing the Church and the world the world the great joy to have a new Pope: it is from the Easter experience of Christ that makes sense the ministry of the successor of Peter, called at each time to live the words we have just heard in the Gospel: “And you, once converted, confirm your brothers.” Peter confirms the brothers in the faith that the crucified is the resurrected, the living forever. The celebration of the novelty by the deceased Pontiff constitutes, for the different categories and affiliations, the realization of a rite of Christian suffrage: ideally, also in this way the successor of Peter calls us to confirm, precisely because we renew our profession of faith in the resurrection of the flesh, in the forgiveness of sins, even those of a man who became a pontiff, and in the renewal Unity of each person’s story is in the hands of God.

2. Today are the cardinal parents who are called to participate in the novelty, almost a central stage of this ecclesial path, gathered in prayer as Collegium and entrusting the Lord to the one who were the first collaborators and counselors, or at least they tried to be, both in the Roman curia and in the dioceses around the world. Ideally, however, each of us, venerable brothers, leads to the people for whom and with whom he is called to live their service: from Tonga with the Pacific Islands to the Mongolian steppes; From ancient Persia with Tehran to Jerusalem, the place where the announcement of salvation came; From the then flourishing places of Christianity and now home to a small flock, in some cases marked by martyrdom, such as Morocco and Algeria, to mention only some geographical coordinates that the Holy Father wanted to delineate in these years calling frequent consistories. In all these places and continents, as well as in those connection spaces that are the offices of the Secretary of State and the Roman curia, as successors of the apostles we are called every day to remember and live with the awareness that “reign is to serve”, as the teacher and Lord, who is among us as the one that serves.

3. One of the titles that the tradition attributes to the Bishop of Rome is, in fact, that of Slave slaves ofloved by San Gregorio Magno since it was only deacon, to remember this constant truth: the liturgy reminds us with external signs, when in the most solemn celebrations we dressed the tunic under the casulla, reminder of our duty to always be deacons, that is, servers. Pope Francis lived it, choosing different places of suffering and loneliness to perform the feet wash during the Holy Mass on the Supperbut also kneeling and kissing the feet of the leaders of South Sudan, imploring the gift of peace, with that same style, considered by many scandalous, but strongly evangelical, with which St. Paul VI, on December 4 of fifty years ago, in the Sistine Chapel, kneeling and kissed Melitón’s feet, metropolitan of Chalcedon. The tradition of the Church, dear Cardinal Brothers, divides us into three orders: bishops, presbyters and deacons, but we are all called to serve, giving testimony of the Gospel up to the shedding of bloodas we swore on the day of our Cardinal Creation, and as it symbolizes the purple we dress, offering us, collegiate and individually, as the first collaborators of the successor of the blessed apostle Peter.

4. The first reading, taken from the book of the Acts of the Apostles, places us fair outside of the Cenacle of Jerusalem, where Jews of all nations under the sky gather. It is Peter who takes the floor to justify what happened: the apostles are not drunk or speak too much; precisely because they are imbued with that sober drunkenness of the spirit, as patristic literature will be called later, they can be understood by different peoples, each in their own language. It is significant that this reading has been chosen in the novelty: it is certainly referring to the apostle Peter, being his first speech, but the context is that of Pentecost, which had just taken place. The temporal reference that Lucas indicates is “while the day of Pentecost was fulfilled.” What does this compliance mean? It is both to come to an end and, at the same time, reach fullness and, therefore, start a new beginning. The Evangelist uses here the same verb he used in Chapter 9 of the Gospel, when, after the transfiguration, when he descended from the mountain, “when the days of his ascension were fulfilled,” Jesus hardened his face and went to Jerusalem, where the Scriptures on him would be fulfilled, as he later remembered the lost disciples on the path of Emaus. After the culmination of transfiguration, the path to compliance with prophecies in Easter in Jerusalem; After Easter, the wait of the spirit in Pentecost, with the fullness of the gift of the spirit, the beginning of the Church. We live the passage between the end of the life of the successor of Peter, Pope Francis, and the fulfillment of the promise that, with the new effusion of the Spirit, the Church of Christ can continue its path among men with a new shepherd. But what prophecy is fulfilled in Pentecost? The one that the liturgical passage omitted, but that Pope Francis cited and said, contained in the third chapter of Joel: «I will shed my spirit over all; Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young people will see visions, your elders will dream dreams … Everyone who invokes the name of the Lord will be saved ». Our dear Holy Father used to repeat it to talk about the encounter and the dialogue between generations, the need for the elderly to share their dreams with young people, and that these, with their energy and vision, know how to make them come true with the help of God. There is no future without this encounter between elders and young people; There is no growth without roots or flowering without new outbreaks. Never prophecy without memory, never memory without prophecy; And I always find. Somehow, Pope Francis also leaves this word to the Cardinal College, composed of young people and older, where everyone can be taught by God, intuit the dream he has for his church and try to make a reality with a young and renewed enthusiasm.

5. In the jubilee call bull, Pope Francis indicated a vision, a dream for which we must prepare and that will be entrusted to the new Pontiff: «This Holy Year will guide the way to another fundamental anniversary for all Christians: in 2033, in fact, we will celebrate the two thousand years of the redemption made through the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We are, therefore, before a path marked by great stages, in which God’s grace precedes and accompanies the people who walk with heat in faith, diligent in charity and persevering in hope (cf. 1 Thess 1.3). Spiritually, we will all become pilgrims along the roads of Holy Land, in Jerusalem, to proclaim the world from the Holy Sepulcher – with the hope of being able to do it with all the brothers and sisters consecrated by a single baptism -: “The Lord has truly resurrected and has appeared to Simon!”.

6. Lord, we entrust you to your servant, Pope Francis, so that you can fill it with joy in your presence, and we ask you the grace to make his vision of a church that announce the mystery of Christ, crucified and risen. Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, intercede with your prayer for whom he longed to fix your loving gaze, and now rest in the basilica dedicated to you. So it is.