MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – In South Florida, Catholics attended mass at churches in greater numbers to commemorate Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a 40-day season of prayer and fasting before Easter on April 20.
In Broward County, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski celebrated mass at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Fort Lauderdale. In Miami-Dade County, Auxiliary Bishop Enrique Delgado was at Gesu Church in Downtown Miami. Services included prayers for Pope Francis.
The Archdiocese of Miami released the Office of Worship regulations for the observance of Lent to remind parishioners to “take only one full meal” on Ash Wednesday.
In Rome, at the Basilica of Saint Sabina, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis read a homily written by Pope Francis, who was nearby at The Gemelli University Hospital where he has been treated since Feb. 14 on the 10th floor.
Like many Catholics around the world, the 88-year-old pontiff received a mark in the shape of a cross on his forehead with ashes out of the burned palm branches that were used last year to commemorate Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
“The ashes help to remind us that our lives are fragile and insignificant: we are dust, from dust we were created, and to dust we shall return,” Francis wrote in his Wednesday homily, according to the Holy See.
The latest update from the Holy See on the health of the leader of the Catholic Church, who is undergoing treatment for bilateral pneumonia, was that “the clinical picture remains stable in the context of a complex situation.”
The Vatican reported Francis used a nasal tube during the day and a mechanical mask at night, as he recovered from the two respiratory crises he had on Monday. He also underwent physical and respiratory therapies.
According to the Vatican, Francis called Rev. Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest of the Holy Family Church in Gaza who like him was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was the pope’s 20th day hospitalized.
In Vatican City, at St. Peter’s Square, Cardinal Francis Prevost continued praying the rosary with the public for the pope’s health on Wednesday night.
Francis, who was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, had part of his lung removed when he was in his 20s. Cardinals elected him on March 13, 2013, after a conclave with 115 participants.
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