Pope Francis celebrates his first Palm Sunday Mass watched by 250,000 pilgrims

Pope Francis celebrates his first Palm Sunday Mass watched by 250,000 pilgrims

mangaloretoday.com/Dailymail

Vatican, March 24: Pope Francis celebrated his first Palm Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Square today, as hundreds of thousands joyfully waved olive branches and palm fronds.

St Peter’s Square overflowed with 250,000 pilgrims, tourists and Italians eager to join the new pope at the start of solemn Holy Week ceremonies, which lead up to Easter.

In keeping with his spontaneous style, the first pope from Latin America broke away several times from the text of his prepared homily to encourage the faithful to lead simple lives.

 

 

 

 

The common touch: Popular Pope Francis kisses a baby in St Peter’s square in Rome as part of the Palm Sunday celebration on Sunday

 

 

Commemorative: Some 250,000 faithful Catholics waved olive branches and palm fronds to recall Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem

 

The Palm Sunday ceremony recalls Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, but the Bible also recounts how he was betrayed by one of his apostles and ultimately sentenced to death on a cross.

Recalling the triumphant welcome into Jerusalem, Pope Francis said Jesus ’awakened so many hopes in the heart, above all among humble, simple, poor, forgotten people, those who don’t matter in the eyes of the world’.
Francis then told an off-the-cuff story from his childhood in Argentina.

’My grandmother used to say, ’children, burial shrouds don’t have’ pockets’’ he told the crowd, in a variation of ’you can’t take it with you’.

’Don’t let yourselves be robbed of hope! Don’t let yourselves be robbed of hope!’ Francis told the crowd, in an apparent reference to the economic downturn.

Since his election on March 13, Francis has put the downtrodden and poor at the centre of his mission as pope, keeping with the priorities of his Jesuit tradition.

His name, the first time a pope has called himself Francis, was inspired by St Francis of Assisi, who renounced a life of high-living for austere poverty and simplicity to preach Jesus’ message to the poor.

 

 

 

Busy time: Pope Francis will be conducting several public services in Rome in the lead up to Easter Sunday when he will again take mass in St Peter’s Square

Francis wore bright red robes over a white cassock as he presided over the Mass at an altar sheltered by a white canopy on the steps of St Peter’s Basilica.

Cardinals, many of them among the electors who chose him to be the Roman Catholic church’s first Latin American pope, sat on chairs during the outdoor ceremony held on a breezy day in Rome.

In his homily, Francis said Christian joy ’isn’t born from possessing a lot of things but from having met Jesus. That same joy should keep people young,’ he said.

He has plans to visit Brazil in July, where he will attend the Catholic youth gathering, say Mass on Copacabana beach and pray at the Christ the Redeemer statue.

So far, that is the first foreign trip on the calendar of Francis’ new papacy.

The faithful knelt on hard cobblestones paving the square, and Francis knelt on a wooden kneeler at the point in the Gospel that recounts the moment of Jesus’ death.

On Good Friday, Frances will attend the Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum and next Sunday he will conduct Easter Mass.