Mexico City, (EFE) .- Thousands of Mexicans congregated on Monday in the Basilica of Guadalupe of Mexico City, called by collective mourning after the death of Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, whose legacy of peace and humility resonates in many hearts.
From the municipality of Chimalhuacán, State of Mexico, in the immediate vicinity of the capital, Ramiro Escamilla and his wife Rosaura moved to the Basilica of Guadalupe to give the last goodbye to Pope Francis.
His son informed them of the news at dawn, a few hours after Francisco’s death at age 88, and then they began to enlist their trip to the capital, according to Escamilla.
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“As many people, we come from Chimalhuacán and many people came from those sides to witness the Mass, in which we feel the loss of Pope Francis,” said the Catholic, while carrying a picture with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Lupita Mazón, a resident of Puebla, already planned a visit to the basilica so that her granddaughter knew her, but hurried when she learned the death of the Pope, news she also received with her heart overflowing during the early morning.
“It gave me sadness because I hope that the Pope would get out of the disease, but only God has our times,” he shared.
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Pope Francis died at 07:35 in Rome (early in Mexico) because of a fulminant stroke (stroke), which resulted in a comma and an irreversible cardiovascular collapse, according to the Vatican.
“We are duel all of Mexico and waiting for it to restore again to see that Dad will be now, but it is a deep duel that we feel many,” Mazón said.
The Mass, convened this noon by the Primado Archbishop of Mexico, Carlos Aguiar Retes, overflowed the Marian Chapel, the main temple, where in 2016 Francisco officiated a mass with 50,000 people and prayed for the victims of violence.
Aguiar Retes, one of the 135 cardinals who will participate in the next conclave, recalled during the Mass that Guadalupe’s basilica was “Pope Francis’s favorite place,” the Pontiff confessed to him on that visit.
At the end of the ceremony, the Catholic mother Lorena Arteaga, commented that Francisco’s legacy is reflected both in his life and in his death, because “he practically said goodbye to the people of God with a blessing” in Easter, and this morning “he got up to work, willing to work as every day.”
“He gave himself to the last moment as a man of God (…) His legacy is that for me, I really question and say, ‘I also want to give everything as a Christian and hopefully and die like him,” said the religious in tears.
The relevance of the religious leader in Mexico, in addition to his visit in 2016, is that it is the second country with the most Catholics in the world, almost 98 million, only behind Brazil.
On the outskirts of the enclosure that the Argentine visited in 2016, and the second most visited Catholic temple in the world, Esther Martínez, a Peruvian tourist resident in the United States, shared his surprise for the number of people who reached the temple.
“It surprises me a lot because I know that in Mexico they are very Catholic,” Martínez said.
“He (Francisco) gave us a lot of teachings and really hurts me a lot, as I believe that all Christians hurts their loss a lot,” he added.
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