Pope Francis presided over the Mass of the Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica this Saturday, after renouncing the Via Crucis of the Colosseum to take care of his health, and in the homily he asked “that despair be removed” for “the peoples destroyed by evil and beaten by injustice.”

In this long celebration of more than two hours, in which the wait for the resurrection of Jesus is commemorated, the pope participated in all the rites and read in a good voice, after this Friday he decided at the last minute not to go to the Colosseum for the Way of the Cross.

In the homily he referred to “that sometimes we feel that a tombstone has been placed heavily in the entrance of our heart, suffocating life, extinguishing trust, enclosing ourselves in the tomb of fears and bitterness.”

The pope called them the “pitfalls of death” and said that “they are all the experiences and situations that rob us of the enthusiasm and the strength to move forward.”

And among them he cited “the deaths of our loved ones, which leave in us voids impossible to fill; in failures,” “the walls of selfishness and indifference, which repel the commitment to build cities and societies more just and dignified for man” and “all the longings for peace broken by the cruelty of hatred and the ferocity of war.”

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The pope then assured that “Jesus is our Easter, the one who makes us move from darkness to light, who has joined us forever and saves us from the abyss of sin and death, drawing us towards the luminous impetus of forgiveness and eternal life.

Francis then went to the “peoples destroyed by evil and beaten by injustice, landless peoples, martyr peoples” to move away “this night the singers of despair.”

The ceremony, one of the longest in the tradition and full of symbolism, began with the blessing of the fire in the atrium of the basilica and the lighting of the Easter candle. The pope marked the candle with the inscription of the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet – alpha and omega – that symbolize that God is the beginning and the end in a totally dark basilica.

Then the traditional procession took place with the entry of the concelebrants in total silence and in the dark and only with the candles lit to represent the absence of light after the death of Jesus Christ.

Only after the deacon pronounced the phrase ‘Lumen Christi’ (The light of Christ) three times did the lights of the basilica turn on and the mass began before 6,000 faithful.

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This long ceremony follows the tradition of the first years of the Church, that of the catechumens, the adults who aspired to convert to Christianity and, therefore, the blessing of water was also celebrated, and Francis baptized eight adults of different nationalities: four Italians, two Koreans, one Japanese and an Albanian.

In this Vatican Holy Week, it has not been possible to enjoy the presence behind the altar of the imposing baldaquin of San Pedro by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, since it remains covered since a restoration is being carried out in view of next year’s Jubilee.

The pope decided this Friday at the last minute not to go to the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum to “safeguard his health” since in recent days he has been suffering from respiratory problems while both today’s ceremony and Sunday’s Resurrection Mass were confirmed.