Pope Reflects on Lent as a Period of Healing Amid Recovery from Pneumonia

Vatican City: Pope Francis said Sunday that he was experiencing Lent as a period of healing in his Angelus address, the text of which the Vatican released only in written form as he was again unable to read it out as he recovers from bilateral pneumonia.

According to Ansa News Agency, the 88-year-old Argentine pontiff has started what is expected to be two months of convalescence, having been discharged from Rome’s Gemelli hospital a week ago following a 38-day stay there.

“Let us live this Lent as a time of healing, all the more as it is the Jubilee,” Francis said in the Angelus address. “I too am experiencing it this way, in my soul and in my body.”

The Pope expressed gratitude to those who have supported him, stating, “That is why I give heartfelt thanks to all those who, in the image of the Saviour, are instruments of healing for their neighbour with their word and their knowledge, with kindness and with prayer.”

He emphasized the shared human experience of frailty and illness, noting, “Frailty and
illness are experiences we all have in common; all the more, however, we are brothers in the salvation Christ has given us.”