The Eucharist, he said, "is love made service. It's the sublime presence of Christ who desires to feed each person, above all the weakest," in order to enable them to follow a path of witness through the difficulties of the world.
Additionally, Jesus attests that we must learn to break with other forms of nourishment in order for our lives to become a true communion with those in need, the Pope said.
Francis then turned to Good Friday, "the culminating moment of love" and the day in which Jesus died on the Cross.
Jesus' abandonment to the Father and his death on the Cross express an unending love which is given until the very last, he said, adding that it is a love which "intends to embrace all, no one excluded."
The Pope encouraged faithful to imitate this love, saying that "if God has demonstrated his supreme love to us in the death of Jesus, now also we, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, can and must love one another."
Speaking of Holy Saturday, when Jesus is enclosed in the tomb, Pope Francis said that it is "the day of God's silence."
"It must be a day of silence," he said, and encouraged faithful to do everything possible be silent that day, and to imitate Mary, who believed in her son and silently waited for his Resurrection.
When Jesus is laid in the tomb, he shares "the drama of death" with all humanity, Francis said, explaining that God's silence "speaks and expresses love as solidarity with the abandoned forever."
The Son of God is the one who fills this void of abandonment, "which only the infinite mercy of the Father can achieve," the Pope said.
Pope Francis closed his audience encouraging pilgrims to let themselves be "enveloped" by God's mercy during Holy Week.
He prayed that throughout the week, "while we have our eyes fixed on the passion and death of the Lord, let us welcome in our heart the greatness of his love, and like Mary in the silence of Holy Saturday, wait for the resurrection."
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Elise Harris was senior Rome correspondent for CNA from 2012 to 2018.