In the first reading, Pope Francis cited the words of St. Peter: "But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses." (Acts 3:14-15).
Turning to the Gospel, the Pope reflected on Jesus telling the disciples that they were "witnesses" of His death and resurrection.
"Every baptized person is called to give witness, with (his) words and life, that Jesus is risen, that Jesus is alive and present among us."
The identity and mission of the witness, Pope Francis said, is summarized into three words: to see, to remember, and to recount.
"The content of the Christian witness is not a theory, not an ideology, or a complex system of precepts and prohibitions or a moralism," the pontiff said.
Rather: "It is a message of salvation, a concrete event, even a Person: It is Christ risen, living, and only savior of everyone."
The witness of a Christian is "all the more credible," when it shines through a way of living that is "evangelical, courageous, gentle, peaceful, merciful."
On the other hand, a Christian who seeks comfort, vanity, selfishness, while becoming "deaf and blind the question of 'resurrection'", Pope Francis asked, "how can he communicate the living Jesus," the "liberating power of Jesus alive and his infinite tenderness?"
Pope Francis concluded his Regina Caeli address by asking Mary's intercession to help Christians become "witnesses of the Lord's Resurrection, carrying to the persons who we encounter the Easter gifts of Joy and Peace."