Pope opens Holy Week with Mass outdoors
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI led a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands at Palm Sunday outdoor Mass.
Waving palm fronds and olive branches, symbols of peace, pilgrims, tourists and Romans packed St. Peter’s Square Sunday for the start of Holy Week ceremonies. By the end of the ceremony, the crowd was so large it spilled out of the square into the broad boulevard which leads to the Tiber.
Palm Sunday’s liturgy recalls Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem; the pope’s homily reflected on how the triumphs of mankind also are tempered by selfishness and evil. “From the beginning, men and women have been filled — and this is as true today as ever — with a desire to be like God, to attain the heights of God by their own powers,” the pope said. “All the inventions of the human spirit are ultimately an effort to gain wings,” he added.
“Mankind has managed to accomplish so many things: we can fly! We can see, hear and speak to one another from the farthest ends of the earth,” the pope told the faithful.
“And yet the force of gravity which draws us down is powerful,” dragging people “toward selfishness, falsehood and evil,” the pope said.
