Vatican City: In a deeply moving liturgy at St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Leo XIV presided over a Requiem Mass for Pope Francis and for the Cardinals and Bishops who have died during the past year, honoring them as “witnesses and teachers of Paschal hope.” The Holy Father prayed that their souls might “be washed from every stain” and that they may “shine like stars in the sky.”
The annual Mass, celebrated in suffrage for the departed prelates, drew members of the College of Cardinals, bishops, clergy, diplomats, and faithful from around the world. It was both a moment of remembrance and a proclamation of faith the conviction that death, illuminated by the Resurrection, leads not to darkness but to eternal life.
From the outset, Pope Leo framed the celebration in the light of Christian hope, describing it as the “flavor” that defines the Jubilee Year and gives meaning to grief. “With great affection,” he said, “we pray today for the elect soul of Pope Francis, who died after opening the Holy Door and imparting the Easter Blessing to Rome and to the world.”
This context, the Pope continued, “gives our prayer a distinctive flavor the flavor of Easter hope, the confidence that death does not have the final word.” He invited the faithful to see in the example of those who have gone before “a reflection of the Risen Christ’s victory over death.”
Reflecting on the Gospel passage of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Pope Leo called it “a vivid representation of the pilgrimage of hope.” Like the disciples who once walked in sorrow, he said, “we too travel the path of mourning yet we are met by the Lord who rekindles faith and joy in our hearts.”
The Pope drew attention to the disciples’ initial despair after witnessing the “violent death” of Jesus a sorrow mirrored, he noted, in the world’s many tragedies today. “Such deaths the deaths of the innocent, the poor, the victims of war and injustice are disfigured by sin and must never be accepted as God’s will,” he said solemnly. “We cannot and must not say ‘laudato si’ for such death, for the Father sent His Son not to cause it, but to free us from it.”
Pope Leo reminded the faithful that Christ entered into suffering not to glorify death, but to redeem it. “He alone,” the Pope said, “can take this corrupt death into Himself without being corrupted by it. He transforms it, filling it with life.”
When believers proclaim that Jesus has “the words of eternal life,” they affirm that His message still has the power to rekindle faith in broken hearts. “The hope born of the Resurrection,” Pope Leo explained, “is not the same as the fragile hope we had before. It is a new reality a grace from the Risen One. It is Easter hope.”
Quoting St. Francis of Assisi, the Pope reflected that “the love of Christ crucified and risen has transfigured death from an enemy, it has become a sister.” This transformation, he said, allows Christians to face loss not with despair, but with serenity rooted in faith.
While acknowledging the pain of losing loved ones and the scandal of lives cut short by violence or disease Pope Leo reaffirmed the Christian conviction that no death, however tragic, can nullify God’s saving embrace. “Even the most disfigured body,” he said, “will be transformed into the image of His glorious body. Such is the triumph of Easter hope.”
The Pope’s words echoed with pastoral compassion and theological depth, linking personal grief with universal redemption. “Their spiritual encouragement,” he said of the deceased prelates, “reaches us still, pilgrims on earth, in the silence of prayer: ‘Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my help and my God.’”
In concluding his homily, Pope Leo praised Pope Francis and the other departed Cardinals and Bishops as “heralds of the Resurrection” who lived and preached the hope of Christ. “The Lord called them and made them shepherds of His people,” he said. “Through their ministry, they guided the righteous along the path of the Gospel, with the wisdom that comes from Christ who has become for us wisdom, justice, sanctification, and redemption.”
As the choir intoned the In Paradisum, the tone of the liturgy shifted from mourning to quiet triumph. Under the dome of St. Peter’s, surrounded by flickering candles and ancient mosaics, the Church renewed its faith in the promise that those who die in the Lord do not perish, but live forever in His light.
The Mass ended in silence a silence filled, as the Pope himself had said, with the “flavor of Christian hope” that transforms grief into trust, and death into the dawn of eternal life.