Pope Francis asks: Where is my heart?

Pope Francis, marking Palm Sunday in a packed St. Peter’s Square, ignored his prepared homily and spoke entirely off-the-cuff in a remarkable departure from practice. In his homily, Francis called on people, himself included, to look into their own hearts to see how they are living their lives.

During this week, he said, “We would do well to ask just one question: who am I? Who am I, before my Lord? Who am I, who enters into Jerusalem in celebration? Am I able to express my joy, to praise Him? Or do I keep distant? Who am I, before Jesus Who suffers?”

The Holy Father recalled the names of those appearing in the Gospel reading for the day which recounts Christ’s Passion and Death. “Has my life fallen asleep?” Francis asked after listening to a Gospel account of how Jesus’ disciples fell asleep shortly before he was betrayed by Judas before his crucifixion. “Am I like Pontius Pilate, who, when he sees the situation is difficult, washes my hands?”

`’Where is my heart?” the pope asked, pinpointing that as the “question which accompanies us” throughout Holy Week. Francis used a wooden pastoral staff carved by Italian prison inmates, who donated it to him. The pope wants to put people on the margins of life at the center of the church’s attention.