Pope celebrates Palm Sunday Mass as planned

Francis preaches sitting down and, after the Angelus prayer, blesses the faithful in the open popemobile on St. Peter’s Square and in the adjacent Via della Conciliazione

Vatican City (KAP) – Pope Francis celebrated the solemn service on Palm Sunday in St. Peter’s Square as planned. As has been the custom since last summer, the Pope presided over the rite seated while a cardinal celebrated the Eucharist standing at the altar. The Argentine Curia Cardinal Leonardo Sandri (79) took on this role. More than 50,000 people in St. Peter’s Square attended the service. The Pope had returned to the Vatican just the day before after a three-day hospital stay.

Francis read his sermon from a seated position, initially in a weak but then increasingly firm voice. He preached about Jesus’ last exclamation on the cross, which is handed down in the Gospel of Matthew with the words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The Pope explained that this dramatic experience of being abandoned affects many people to this day. “There are entire peoples who are exploited and left to their own devices; there are poor people who live at the crossroads of our streets and whose eyes we dare not meet; migrants who are no longer persons but numbers; rejected prisoners, people , which are cataloged as problems.”

Deviating from the manuscript, Francis also remembered a German homeless man who had died alone and abandoned in the colonnades of St. Peter’s Square a few weeks ago. About himself the Pope said: “I too need the tenderness of Jesus that he turns to me, and that is why I look for him in the abandoned and the lonely.”

During the Angelus prayer after the service, the pope’s voice was weak and hoarse again. On this occasion, Francis recalled the suffering of the Ukrainian people at war and called for prayer for peace.

After the final blessing, the Pope allowed himself to be driven in a wheelchair to the cardinals who were waiting for him and shook hands with many of them. He exchanged a few words with the German Curia Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller. Then he drove in the open popemobile, waving and blessing through the cheering crowd on St. Peter’s Square. Surprisingly, he allowed himself to be driven onto the tourist- and pilgrim-crowded Via della Conciliazione, where thousands waved at him as he passed them at walking pace before returning to the Vatican.

((end)) PWU
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