While he had canceled his appointments on Saturday due to a “slight flu-like condition,” Pope Francis did come to the window of the Apostolic Palace to lead the Angelus on February 25, 2024. In his catechesis, he invited Christians to “never look away from the light of Jesus.”
Like every Sunday at noon, the Pope greeted the thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square, this week under a radiant sun. The 87-year-old Pontiff, who was on his Lenten spiritual retreat last week, did not show any unusual signs of fatigue. On Saturday, he would have met the deacons of his Diocese of Rome. But “because of a slight flu” and “as a precaution,” the Pope had canceled his audiences. (The text he had prepared for his meeting with the deacons is nonetheless available at the Vatican web site.)
Standing at the window on Sunday, he delivered a short catechesis on the gospel of the day, which presents the transfiguration of Christ.
“From this light,” the Pope explained, “the disciples must never again look away, especially in moments of trial.”
Advising Christians to keep “always before their eyes the luminous face of Christ,” the head of the Catholic Church also invited them to see “the light of God” in “each brother and sister.”
In this time of Lent, these forty days of preparation to celebrate Easter, Pope Francis proposed a “good resolution”:
Cultivate open eyes, become ‘seekers of light,’ seekers of the light of Jesus in prayer and in people.
And today we celebrate...