In his homily, Pope Francis sought to encourage his global audience of countless millions who were following this unique celebration by television, radio or social media. Drawing on the Gospel account of Jesus’ passion and crucifixion, he recalled that Jesus “descended into the abyss of our most bitter sufferings, culminating in betrayal and abandonment,” and said that from this experience Jesus’s message to us today is this: “Do not be afraid, you are not alone. I experienced all your desolation in order to be ever close to.” “Today, in the tragedy of a pandemic, in the face of the many false securities that have now crumbled,” Francis said, “in the face of so many hopes betrayed, in the sense of abandonment that weighs upon our hearts, Jesus says to each one of us: ‘Courage, open your heart to my love. You will feel the consolation of God who sustains you’.” He told the small congregation in the basilica of some thirty persons standing at a distance from each other and the larger global audience that Jesus had “served us even to the point of being betrayed and abandoned,” and that, “we were put in this world to love him and our neighbours. Everything else passes away, only this remains.”