Ever the pope of surprises, Pope Francis arrived in a wheelchair in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, April 6, at the end of the Mass for the Jubilee of the Sick and Health Care Workers, sparking scenes of enthusiasm, the waving of scarves and flags, and joyous shouts of “Viva il Papa!” from the more than 20,000 present.
It was an incredible sight. No one had expected to see the 88-year-old pope return to St. Peter’s Square today, since two weeks ago his doctors, on discharging him from the Gemelli Hospital on March 23, prescribed for him a “protected convalescence” of “at least two months” and advised him to avoid large crowds.
Instead, the opposite happened. Pope Francis, looking surprisingly well and wearing nasal tubes for oxygen, was wheeled onto the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica by his nurse, Massimiliano Strapetti, and accompanied by one of his secretaries, Father Juan Cruz Villalón, and taken to the front of the altar, where he normally sits for audiences and sometimes at Mass.
He arrived just before Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for the Evangelization of Peoples and chief organizer of the Jubilee Year, whom Francis had delegated to celebrate the Mass, began to impart the blessing. As the archbishop blessed the people, Pope Francis joined in giving the triple blessing with his right hand.
Shortly after his arrival, a message from the pope was read in various languages, as reported by the Italian news agency ANSA. It said: “His Holiness Pope Francis affectionately greets all the participants in this celebration and thanks them for their prayers and God for his health. Hoping that the Jubilee pilgrimage will be rich in fruits, he imparts to them the apostolic blessing, extending it to loved ones, to the sick and the suffering, as well as to all the faithful gathered today.”
Pope Francis then asked for the microphone, checked that it was working by tapping it with his finger, and said: “Happy Sunday! Thank you all!” drawing applause, cheers and more shouts of “Viva il Papa!”
His visit lasted about 10 minutes. The Vatican said that before his arrival in the square, Pope Francis went to confession in St. Peter’s Basilica and also went through the Holy Door that he had opened on the night of Dec. 24 for the start of the Jubilee Year.
In his written message for the midday Angelus, which the Vatican press office released, Francis began with a comment on the Gospel of the day that tells the story of the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11), whom the scribes and the pharisees wanted to stone to death. He recalled that “Jesus restores the lost beauty to this woman. She has fallen in the dust; Jesus passes his finger on this dust and writes a new story for her.” The Argentine pope said, “it is the ‘finger of God,’ who saves His children (cf. Ex 8:15) and frees them from evil (cf. Lk 11:20).”
He told the sick people and the health care workers present at the Mass, and those following it by television and social media, “Dear friends, as during my hospitalization, even now in my convalescence, I feel the ‘finger of God’ and experience his caring touch.”
He added, “And I ask the Lord that this touch of his love may reach those who suffer and encourage those who care for them.”
During his pontificate, Francis has been in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital four times, most recently for 38 days recovering from double pneumonia and two life-threatening crises, and he is ever grateful to the medical staff that helped him pull through. So today he asked people in his written message to “pray for doctors, nurses and health workers, who are not always helped to work in adequate conditions and are sometimes even victims of aggression.” He added, “Their mission is not easy and must be supported and respected. I hope that the necessary resources will be invested in treatment and research, so that health systems are inclusive and attentive to the most fragile and the poorest.”
‘Continue to pray for peace’
Even during his hospitalization and convalescence, Francis has always paid attention to what is happening in the world, and especially in war-torn countries. In his statement today, too, he urged people to “continue to pray for peace.” He asked them first to pray for peace “in martyred Ukraine, stricken by attacks that are claiming many civilian victims, including a lot of children,” alluding to the Russian attacks of recent days.
He next turned to Gaza, where “the same is happening,” he wrote, referring to the Israeli “attacks that are claiming many civilian victims, including a lot of children.” He highlighted the fact that in Gaza “people are reduced to living in unimaginable conditions, without shelter, without food, without clean water.” He appealed for an end to the attacks there, saying, “May the weapons be silenced and dialogue resumed; may all the hostages be freed and aid brought to the population.”
He also asked people to “pray for peace throughout the Middle East; in Sudan and South Sudan; in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; in Myanmar, hard hit by the earthquake; and in Haiti, where violence rages, and two religious sisters were killed a few days ago.”
Francis has also always been attentive to the plight of prisoners, and today he thanked the inmates of Rome’s Rebibbia women’s prison “for the note they have sent to me” during his illness and said, “I pray for them and for their families.”
Earlier, in a homily prepared for the Jubilee of the Sick and Health Care Workers that was read by Archbishop Fisicella, Pope Francis wrote, “Illness is certainly one of the harshest and most difficult of life’s trials, when we experience in our own flesh our common human frailty. It can make us feel like the people in exile, or like the woman in the Gospel [caught in adultery] deprived of hope for the future.”
“Yet that is not the case,” the pope wrote. “Even in these times, God does not leave us alone, and if we surrender our lives to him, precisely when our strength fails, we will be able to experience the consolation of his presence. By becoming man, he wanted to share our weakness in everything [cf. Phil2:6-8]. He knows what it is to suffer [cf. Is 53:3]. Therefore, we can turn to him and entrust our pain to him, certain that we will encounter compassion, closeness and tenderness.”
He wrote, “In his faithful love, the Lord invites us in turn to become ‘angels’ for one another, messengers of his presence, to the point where the sickbed can become a “holy place” of salvation and redemption, both for the sick and for those who care for them.”
Addressing doctors, nurses and health care workers, he told them, “in caring for your patients, especially the most vulnerable among them, the Lord constantly affords you an opportunity to renew your lives through gratitude, mercy and hope. He calls you to realize with humility that nothing in life is to be taken for granted and that everything is a gift from God; to enrich your lives with the sense of humanity we experience when, beyond appearances, only the things that matter remain: the small and great signs of love.” He urged them, “Allow the presence of the sick to enter your lives as a gift, to heal your hearts, to purify them of all that is not charity, and to warm them with the ardent and gentle fire of compassion.”
Reflecting on his personal experience of illness
Then, turning to the many sick people in the world, Francis wrote, “I have much in common with you at this time of my life, dear brothers and sisters who are sick: the experience of illness, of weakness, of having to depend on others in so many things, and of needing their support.”
In words that seemed to come from his personal experience, he wrote, “This is not always easy, but it is a school in which we learn each day to love and to let ourselves be loved, without being demanding or pushing back, without regrets and without despair, but rather with gratitude to God and to our brothers and sisters for the kindness we receive, looking towards the future with acceptance and trust.”
Pope Francis told the sick, “The hospital room and the sickbed can also be places where we hear the voice of the Lord speak to us: “Behold, I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? [Is 43:19] In this way, we renew and strengthen our faith.”
He concluded the homily with an appeal to people everywhere: “Dear friends, let us not exclude from our lives those who are frail, as at times, sadly, a certain mentality does today. Let us not banish suffering from our surroundings. On the contrary, let us turn it into an opportunity to grow together and to cultivate hope, thanks to the love that God first poured into our hearts [cf. Rom 5:5], the love that, above all things, remains forever [cf. 1 Cor 13:8-10, 13].”
Today’s unexpected presence of the pope among the Jubilee pilgrims has already led to speculation in Rome that Francis may choose to participate in an episodic way in the Easter ceremonies. It remains to be seen as he continues to surprise, even his doctors, by his remarkable ongoing recovery.
