A convalescent Pope Francis greeted the crowd in the Plaza de San Pedro on Domingo de Ramos, wishing more than 20,000 faithful a “Ramos Sunday, a good Holy Week”, in another public sign reassuring its recovery of a potentially deadly battle with double pneumonia.
Many in the crowd approached to touch Francis’s hand or garments while they brought it in a wheelchair by a ramp to the main altar, where he issued his brief greeting in a microphone. The 88 -year -old Pope did not carry nasal tubes for supplementary oxygen, as he had done during a similar appearance last Sunday.
On his way back to the Basilica of San Pedro from where he had emerged, Francis stopped to bless a rosary and offered sweets to a child who greeted him.
Francis, 88, is entering his fourth week of convalescence during which doctors have advised him to avoid crowds. While Francis is clearly anxious to demonstrate that he feels better, he has not spoken more than a few words in public, since he recovers from a severe respiratory crisis. The Vatican said he was waiting to advise on what role he can play in the next events of Holy Week that lead to Easter Sunday.
It was his second in the Plaza de San Pedro before a crowd, after the unexpected appearance last Sunday that excited the faithful. He also met privately with King Carlos III and Queen Camilla this week, and made an imprudent a tour of the Basilica of San Pedro, stopping to pray, and thank a couple of restorers for their work in the masterpieces of the Basilica.
On Saturday, the eve of Holy Week, Francis went to the Basilica Mayor of Santa María in the center of Rome to pray in private before a favorite icon of the Virgin Mary, Salus Populi Romani. The Basilica, which typically visits and after its trips abroad, was also its first stop after leaving the Gemelli hospital on March 23.
In the traditional Sunday blessing, the Pontiff thanked the faithful for their prayers. “In this moment of physical weakness, they help me feel the closeness, compassion and tenderness of God even more.” For the ninth week, including its five -week hospitalization as of February 14, the blessing was delivered as a text.
The Pope offered prayers for those who suffered in the conflict in Sudan, which marks his second anniversary on Tuesday, and by Lebanon, where the civil war began 50 years ago, as well as for peace in Ukraine, the Middle East, Congo, Myanmar and Sudan del Sur.
In a homily from Palm Sunday read by a Cardinal of the Vatican Top, Francis urged the faithful to take the cross “of those who suffer around us” to mark the beginning of the solemn Holy Week.
Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, vice president of the Faculty of Cardinals, directed the celebrations, leading a procession of cardinals around the central obelisk of the Piazza that carried a palm of the ornate adorned palm that remembers the triumphant entry of Jesus in Jerusalem, when the crowds waved palm branches to honor him.
The initial welcome contrasts with the suffering that follows, before their crucifixion, that Christians observe on Good Friday, followed by their resurrection, held on Easter Sunday.
The faithful emerged from the Plaza de San Pedro that had blessed palm leaves or olive branches to mark the occasion.
