It was perhaps the moment of greatest silence and contrition in a grocery store Saint Peter’s Square in it Vatican. It was when a group of twelve guards -dressed in black and a shirt, bow tie and white gloves- slowly and with a martial step led in front of the dad Francisco the wooden and zinc coffin inside which lay the remains of Benedict XVIwho died last Saturday, December 31.
There, when the procession stopped in front of the current pontiff, Francisco He got up from his wheelchair, crossed himself, bowed his head and placed his right hand on the cypress surface that covers the simple coffin. In this way, he began the final farewell to Joseph Ratzingerthe 95-year-old German bishop.
Wisdom and delivery
The Pope Francisco highlighted the “wisdom, delicacy and delivery” what Benedict XVI “he knew how to spread throughout the years” in the homily of the funeral mass for the emeritus pontiff who celebrated today before tens of thousands of faithful in Saint Peter’s Square in the Vatican.
The Argentine pontiff presided, in what is almost an unprecedented circumstance in the history of the Catholic Church, the funeral of his predecessor, who died on December 31 at the age of 95 after almost 10 years since his resignation from the pontificate, and officiated by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, the Italian Giovani Battista Re and concelebrated 130 cardinals, 400 bishops and 4,000 priests.
Francis’ homily, which he read seated due to his knee problems, began with the words “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”, which are the last words that the Lord uttered on the cross according to the Gospel.
“We too, clinging to the last words of the Lord and to the testimony that marked his life, want, as an ecclesial community, follow in his footsteps and trust our brother in the hands of the Father: may these hands of mercy find their lamp lit with the oil of the Gospel, which he spread and witnessed during his life”, Francis said.
The mortal remains of Benedict XVI were placed in the center of the atrium of the Vatican square, after a procession from inside the basilica and after this Wednesday, at the closing of a burning chapel that almost 200,000 peoplewere placed in a coffin made of cypress wood, as required by tradition.
Inside the coffin have also been introduced the coins minted during his pontificate, the parchment with a brief account of the 8 eight years of his pontificate and the canopies that he wore as archbishop of Munich and Rome.
The Pope recalled the words of Saint Gregory the Great to a friend: “In the midst of the storms of my life, I am encouraged by the confidence that you will keep me afloat on the board of your prayersand that if the weight of my faults lowers and humiliates me, you will lend me the help of your merits to lift me up.
“It is the awareness of the Pastor that he cannot bear alone what, in reality, he could never bear alone and, for this reason, he is capable of abandoning himself to prayer and the care of the people entrusted to him,” Francis added.
And then he made reference to “the faithful People of God who, reunited, accompanies and entrusts the life of whoever was their pastor.”
“Like the women of the Gospel at the tomb, we are here with the perfume of gratitude and the ointment of hope to show you, once again, that love that is not lost; we want to do it with the same anointing, wisdom, delicacy and dedication that he knew how to spread throughout the years”, added the Pope speaking of Joseph Ratzinger.
“We want to say together: ‘Father, into your hands we commend his spirit.‘”, he added in this mass that he has maintained, except with minor changes in the readings or petitions, the liturgy of papal funerals.
(With information from EFE)
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Source-www.infobae.com