The Pope appears again and seeks the abandoned

He pope Francis he led the mass on Palm Sunday, the day after he was released from the hospital due to bronchitis, and in his homily he defended the “abandonment” of the world: “No one can be marginalized”, he said in front of thousands of believers and in an even weaker voice during this Eucharist that opens Holy Week .

“Forsaken Jesus asks us to have eyes and a heart for the abandoned. For us, students of the abandoned, no one can be marginalized; no one can be left to their fate,” he urged before a Saint Peter’s Square decorated and crowded with believers.

In this sense, he reminded a dead beggar in the Vatican colonnade “alone and abandoned” and which, he said, represents Christ.

“Many need our closeness, many abandonedI also need Jesus to caress me, to be close to me, and that’s why I go looking for him in the abandoned and lonely,” he said.

In his first public appearance, after three days of hospitalization for bronchitis at the age of 86, Francisco, covered in a long white robe, reflected on the words of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you left me?”.

In this sense, he explained that “the verb ‘to leave’ in the Bible is strong” and “occurs in moments of great pain”, and therefore the mention of Christ should encourage his followers to “seek him and love him in the abandoned” of our time.

“Today there are so many ‘abandoned Christians’. Entire cities exploited and left to their fate; the poor people who live at the crossroads of our streets, whom we dare not see; immigrants who are no longer faces but numbers; rejected prisoners, people classified as problems”, he lamented, raising his voice.

But, he asserted, there are many of them “Christs rejected with a white glove” as “unborn children, old people left alone, in nursing homes”unvisited sick people, ignored disabled people, young people who feel a great inner emptiness, but no one really hears their cry of pain.

Francisco, he’s still recoveringhe appeared again in St. Peter’s Square in front of about 30,000 believers -according to data from the Holy See- after he spent three days in the Gemelli Hospital in Rome due to bronchitis that occurred last Wednesday after the general audience.

before mass, They took him sitting on a convertible to the center of the squareat the foot of the obelisk, to bless the olive and palm branches that the faithful, nuns and curia members carried in the procession, reminding of the victorious entry of Jesus from Nazareth into Jerusalem.

He got out of the car under his own power. and then he walked a few meters to the place prepared for the blessing, with the help of a cane that he often uses because of knee problems.

The Argentine pope later went to the basilica, always in a car and with his own palm, to lead the mass from there, which today was led by the cardinal Argentine Leonardo Sandria formula that will be repeated throughout Holy Week.