Following is the text of the Easter message by Custos of the Holy Land Fr. Francesco Ielpo dated April 1, 2025:

Dear brothers and sisters, may the Risen Lord grant you his peace.  

In this Easter, celebrated here in the Holy Land in a time marked by so many wounds and sufferings, we are called to live the resurrection of Christ not only as an event of the past, but as an occurrence that reaches us today, in this concrete situation, and that brings with it a judgment on our history and on our life. Saint Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles, announcing Jesus to the family of the centurion Cornelius, affirms: "They killed him by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him on the third day." (Acts 10, 39-40) Between the judgment of men and that of God there is a profound contrast: men rejected, condemned, and eliminated Jesus; God instead recognized him, approved him, and raised him.  

The resurrection overturns our criteria. The judgment of the world affirms that it matters to be strong, powerful, and winning; the judgment of God reveals that true strength is in the gift of oneself, in the capacity to love until the end, in the sacrifice for a greater good. The judgment of the world sees in the cross a defeat, a loss, a humiliation, a folly; the judgment of God, with the resurrection, proclaims that precisely there true wisdom manifests itself, there true victory manifests itself: the victory of the love that gives itself without reserve.  

Dear brothers and sisters, in Easter life wins over death, light over darkness, love over hatred. In this land, where even today we experience the weight of war, of violence, of fear, and of uncertainty, the resurrection of Christ is not a distant word, but a concrete fact that asks us to change our gaze: not to let ourselves be determined by the judgment of the world, but to learn to read history with the eyes of God. Easter invites us to believe that renouncing violence is not weakness, that forgiving is not a defeat, that death is not the end.  

To all of you, to your communities and to your families, may the wish for an Easter of authentic hope reach you, capable of renewing the heart and of sustaining us in the daily journey. Christ is risen: this is our certainty, this is our peace.  

Have a good and holy Easter.