On Friday, Pope Francis stood alone on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica in front of a deserted square and delivered a dramatic Urbi et Orbi – a blessing “to the city and the world.”
The Pope, who is isolated for his safety, conducted the ceremony with minimal assistance, his lone figure a stark symbol of the new reality the pandemic has impressed upon the world.
View the entire ceremony here:
Below are some of the notable observations the Pope shared in his meditation:
- “We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. “
- “The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It shows us how we have allowed to become dull and feeble the very things that nourish, sustain and strengthen our lives and our communities. “
- “… our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people – often forgotten people – who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines nor on the grand catwalks of the latest show, but who without any doubt are in these very days writing the decisive events of our time: doctors, nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners, caregivers, providers of transport, law and order forces, volunteers, priests, religious men and women and so very many others…”