Coronavirus: Pope Francis delivers poignant service to empty St Peter’s Square
In drizzle and darkness, Pope Francis stood at a deserted St Peter’s Square for the most memorable moment of his tenure.
It was worth setting the alarm for 3 o’clock Saturday morning.
In Rome it was 6pm on Friday and St Peter’s Square, rain soaked and eerily empty at dusk, was the backdrop for a simple, poignant service. In one of the most memorable events of his Pontificate, Pope Francis drew on centuries of Christian tradition, invoking God’s blessing on the city and the world (Urbi et Orbi).
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he stood beside a historic crucifix that was carried through the city’s streets during the plague of 1522.
Citing St Mark’s Gospel which recounted how Jesus slept in a fishing boat as a storm raged and the Apostles were frightened, Francis said the passage was a spiritual guide to facing coronavirus. The disease has so far claimed more lives in Italy (11,591 deaths from 101,739 cases) than in any other country.
“We have realised 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,” he said.
“The tempest lays bare all our pre-packaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our people’s souls; all those attempts that anaesthetise us with ways of thinking and acting that supposedly ‘save’ us, but (they) instead prove incapable of putting us in touch with our roots and keeping alive the memory of those who have gone before us.
“We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity.”
Ministering to the faithful through cyberspace, Australian churches have also dug deep into tradition in the lead-up to Easter.
From Sunday, Catholic churches across Sydney began ringing their bells five times a day. Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher said the ringing of church bells was deeply entrenched in Christian culture, be it to announce the start of Mass, weddings, funerals, the election of a new Pope or the end of war.
The bells of St Mary’s Cathedral in the heart of the city and of suburban churches, he said, would be rung at 9am for to pray for the sick; at noon for those caring for the sick; at 3pm for the unemployed, and those who were financially stressed, isolated or lonely; at 6pm for political leaders and health authorities at 9pm for those who had died from COVID-19 and their families.
In his homily in his live stream Mass on Sunday, Archbishop Fisher said this was the fifth time Masses had been suspended or banned during in Australia’s history. It had happened three times during the early years of colonisation, and while trying to contain the ravages of the Spanish flu in 1919.
In Melbourne, the Parish of Saint John Henry Newman, Caulfield North, has released a video to mark the start of Passiontide, the final two weeks of Lent. Starting with an Old Testament Lamentation “How lonely she is now, the once crowded city’’, it reassures the faithful they are not forgotten.
While currently locked out of churches, their needs and intentions are being remembered by their priests at Mass, the message said. It shows the church’s statues and crucifixes swathed in violet, explaining why they will remain covered until Good Friday.
More Coverage
This is the silliest trade war, but expect Donald Trump to win it
Canada and Mexico taking on the US on tariffs is a bit like me picking a fight with Mike Tyson. It’s barely possible I might get one punch in, but the result is not remotely in doubt.
Low-emission ‘flying bum’ gets green light
The odd-looking hybrid aircraft Airlander could carry 100 passengers while remaining remarkably fuel efficient.