The Pope, who every day seems more recovered from his health problems, unexpectedly attended this Sunday from Ramos to the Plaza de San Pedro del Vaticano, where, in a wheelchair and without the need for oxygen, he greeted the faithful at the beginning of Holy Week.
“Good Palm Sunday, a good Holy Week,” he said on the central altar of the square after appearing by surprise, although in reality almost everyone was waiting for him, at the end of the Mass of Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of the rites of one of the most important moments of Catholicism.
There he greeted his compatriot, the Argentine cardinal Leonardo Sandri, in which he delegated his homily to read due to the slow recovery of his voice, but did not want to miss the contact with the faithful, who can end up imposing himself to the medical recommendations in the next liturgical celebrations.
Francisco, without the nasal cannulas on, walked among the faithful and stopped to exchange a few words with a group of nuns, as well as with several children, with whom he showed gestures of complicity, while there were shouts of ‘Long live the Pope’.
“At the end of the Mass, Pope Francis joined the pilgrims and faithful in the square and wished them the best for Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week,” said the Vatican in a statement.
As he added, the pontiff “Then, back to the Basilica, stopped in prayer before the tomb of the apostle and in front of the monument dedicated to Benedict XV.”
This is the last appearance of the Pontiff since on March 23 he left the Gemelli Hospital in Rome after 38 days admitted by bilateral pneumonia and other respiratory problems, but not the only one.
After his reappearance last Sunday also in the Vatican Square, during the jubilee of the sick, Francisco has come out twice from the residence and received by surprise the British kings Carlos and Camila, despite the fact that doctors estimated that he should remain at least two months of rest.
Last Thursday, the Pope appeared with dark pants, in a shirt and with a poncho in the Basilica of San Pedro, which also toured in a wheelchair to observe the restoration of the chair zone and pray in the tomb of Pius X, and this Saturday went to the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor.
“Take your hand to which you can’t anymore”
The Pope asked to “hold the hand to which he can no longer” in the homily read in his name at the Mass of Palm Sunday, the celebration that opens the rites of Holy Week, marked this year by Francisco’s convalescence.
“The passion of Jesus becomes compassion when we have the hand that can no longer, when we raise the one who is fallen, when we embrace the one who is disconsolate,” said the Pope in his homily, read by Cardinal Sandri before more than 20,000 people waiting for Francisco.
The square was adorned with the olive and palms branches that the faithful, religious and members of the curia had behaved in procession before the Mass, remembering the triumphal entry in Jerusalem of Jesus of Nazareth, an ancient rite of the Catholic religion dating from the third century.
“Brothers, sisters, to experience this great miracle of mercy, we decide during Holy Week how to take the cross; not to the neck, but in the heart,” said Francisco’s text.
I remember for the victims of Santo Domingo
On such an intense branches, the Pope did not forget to remember the 226 mortal victims of the collapse of the roof of a disco in the Dominican Republic and asked that “God welcomes them in his peace” in the Sunday prayer of the Angelus, which was published again in writing.
“Sisters and brothers, I thank you very much for your prayers. In this moment of physical weakness they help me feel even more the closeness, compassion and tenderness of God,” he said.
Then, the Pope asked the faithful: “That you entrust all those who suffer, especially those affected by war, poverty or natural disasters. In particular, that God welcomes in his peace the victims of the collapse of a place in Santo Domingo, and holds their relatives.”
With EFE information.
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