During his various encounters, the Pope took questions from the youth, some of whom were members of the Scouts of Europe group, also heard the confessions of four people, including a teenager, a youth and two adults, a woman and a man.
The Pope was thirty minutes late to Mass due to meetings with various groups from the parish community. He kept his homily short, contrasting the luminous faces of Jesus at the Transfiguration and the Resurrection with the face of Jesus on the Cross.
Please read below for the full text of the Pope's brief homily:
Two times reference is made in this passage of the Gospel to the beauty of Jesus, of Jesus as God, of Jesus illuminated, of Jesus full of joy and life. First in the vision, he was transfigured in front of them, in front of the disciples. 'His face shown like the sun and his garments became white as light.' Jesus is transformed, he is transfigured. The second time, while they were going down from the mountain, Jesus ordered them not so speak of this vision before he is risen from the dead. In the Resurrection, Jesus will have a face, luminous and bright, it will be like this. What can I tell you? Between this beautiful Transfiguration and that Resurrection there will be another face of Jesus. There will be a face that's not so beautiful. There will be an ugly face, disfigured, tortured, despised (and) bloodied. Jesus' entire body is like something to throw away. Two transfigurations, and in the middle is Jesus Crucified, the Cross. We must look at the Cross a lot. And Jesus-God; this is my Son, this is my Son, the beloved. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is annihilated to save us. And to use a word that's too strong, perhaps it's one of the strongest words in the New Testament: he was made sin. Sin is the worst thing, sin is an offense against God, a slap in the face to God. It's to tell God 'I don't care about you, I prefer this.' And Jesus became sin, he was annihilated. And to prepare the disciples not to be scandalized by seeing him like this on the Cross, he did this transfiguration. We are used to speaking about sin. When we confess, 'I did this sin, I did this other one.' Even in confession, when we are forgiven, we feel that we are forgiven because he took this sin in the Passion. He was made sin. We are used to speaking about the sin of others. It's an ugly thing. Instead, to speak of (others), I don't say to sin, because we can't, but to look at our sins, it's he who became sin. This is the path toward Easter, toward the resurrection, with this assurance of the transfiguration to go forward. To see this face, so beautiful, so luminous, which is the same that we see in the transfiguration and it's the same one that we'll see in heaven. And also to see this other face, which became sin. He paid like this for all of us. Jesus became sin. He became the curse of God for us. The blessed Son of God became cursed because he took our sins upon himself. Let's think about this. How much love. Let's also think about the beauty of the transfigured face of God that we'll see in heaven. This contemplation of the two faces of Jesus, the transfigured one and the one made sin, cursed, encourages us to go forward on the path of life, the Christian journey. It also encourages us in the forgiveness of our sins, we've sinned a lot. It above all encourages in trust. Because if he became sin because he took ours upon himself, he is always disposed to forgive us. We only have to ask him.
Elise Harris was senior Rome correspondent for CNA from 2012 to 2018.