The Pope's clinical situation is stable but there are slight improvements thanks to both respiratory and motor physiotherapy, which allows him to be without oxygen therapy for short periods. The Vatican press office reported.

Yesterday Francis concelebrated the mass in the chapel on the tenth floor of the Gemelli hospital, he resumed some work, he did not receive any visitors, the Vatican press office itself reports. But above all , the first photo since his hospitalization last February 14 was released : without a skullcap and with the vestments for the mass, the purple stole worn during Lent; sitting in a wheelchair, his gaze lowered and absorbed in prayer. In the shot Francis seems to be free from the oxygen cannulas but the photograph shows him only from the side. In front of him is the small altar for the mass and the crucifix. On the side wall are the images of the stations of the Via Crucis, the main devotion of this liturgical period.

One can imagine, behind this photo, a situation of suffering, the one that the Pope himself described in yesterday's Angelus, the fifth in written form only: "I am facing a period of trial, and I join so many sick brothers and sisters: fragile, at this moment, like me. Our body is weak but, even so, nothing can prevent us from loving, from praying, from giving ourselves, from being for one another, in faith, luminous signs of hope".

Suffering, therefore, but also hope because God does not abandon: "How much light shines, in this sense, in hospitals and places of care! How much loving attention illuminates the rooms, the corridors, the clinics, the places where the most humble services are carried out! Therefore I would like to invite you, today, to give with me praise to the Lord, who never abandons us - Pope Francis emphasizes - and who in moments of pain places beside us people who reflect a ray of his love".

(Online Union)