A ship sets sail, unaware of the storm awaiting it. On shore, families wave, not knowing it’s the last goodbye. Among them stood the family of Jorge Mario Bergoglio–Pope Francis. In his memoir Hope, he writes, “My ancestors were on an immigrant ship torn apart by storms.” He begins not with triumph, but with tragedy–identifying with the displaced, not the powerful. His first journey outside the Vatican was to the island of Lampedusa, where countless migrants met their end at sea. These are not fearless voyagers, but people fleeing lands made unbearable by war, poverty, and persecution. In a world that boasts of legacy and privilege, the Pope proclaims with quiet defiance: “The blood of migrants runs through my veins.” From war-torn homes to refugee camps, he echoes the divine question that still demands an answer: “Where is your brother?”

Resurrection, then, is not a ritual, but a responsibility. It is not validated by slogans, but by presence. When Pope Francis stood on that Lampedusan shore and said “I am here,” it was not rhetoric–it was solidarity. Christ did not rise to reclaim a throne, but to restore the broken. His resurrection did not end with twelve disciples; it rippled outward–reclaiming lives from despair. But when Easter becomes a mere tradition, those still entombed in suffering remain in darkness. Resurrected lives are meant to be lighthouses–guiding those adrift in storms of grief and injustice. Actress Angelina Jolie, in receiving a humanitarian award, once asked: Why do I have food, shelter, and peace–while others have none? That question is not reserved for the afflicted; it is addressed to the comfortable, to those who live in abundance while others only survive.

To be truly risen is to live beyond oneself. It is to rise not only from death, but from indifference. True death is not the absence of breath, but the absence of love. In sorrow, we demand answers from God. In joy, we rarely ask why we were chosen to be blessed. Resurrection flickers in the small acts–the compassionate interruption of convenience, the quiet defense of the voiceless, the table opened to the hungry. In Christ’s rising, many rise again–through the hands that feed, the arms that embrace, the hearts that remember. Pope Francis names our greatest threat as the “globalization of indifference.” Against this, he calls for a Culture of Compassion–a way of life that looks upon the suffering and says, “This is absolutely my business.”

Reflecting on the person of Simon of Cyrene on April 13 Palm Sunday Pope Francis said that “Jesus’ passion becomes compassion whenever we hold out our hand to those who feel they cannot go on, when we lift up those who have fallen, when we embrace those who are discouraged. Brothers and sisters, in order to experience this great miracle of mercy, let us decide how we are meant to carry our own cross during this Holy Week: if not on our shoulders, in our hearts. And not only our cross, but also the cross of those who suffer all around us; perhaps even the cross of some unknown person whom chance – but is it really chance? – has placed on our way.” Resurrection is not merely an event to be celebrated–it is a calling to become light where darkness still dwells. And we, the risen, must go where the light is most needed.

“Christ’s resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world. Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force. Often it seems that God does not exist: all around us we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference and cruelty. But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life and sooner or later produces fruit. On razed land life breaks through, stubbornly yet invincibly. However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world beauty is born anew, it rises transformed through the storms of history. Values always tend to reappear under new guises, and human beings have arisen time after time from situations that seemed doomed. Such is the power of the resurrection, and all who evangelize are instruments of that power” (Evangelii Gaudium 276).