During the Easter holidays, students from the Pontifical College Nepomucenum usually go home to help or to Italian parishes. Nevertheless, a group of priests, sisters, and collaborators remains in Rome for the holidays.
On Easter Sunday, as usual, we celebrated Mass at Nepomucenum and immediately after that we set off to St. Peter's Square for the Urbi et Orbi blessing. In beautiful sunny weather, we, along with tens of thousands of other pilgrims, were very pleased when Holy Father Francis appeared on the basilica's balcony. He wished us blessed Easter and then passed the message to his ceremoniere, Archbishop Ravelli, to read his message. Pope Francis, with great effort, gave the apostolic blessing at the end in the greatest simplicity and the shortest formula, and the people rejoiced.
On the screens, a very unusual text appeared: “Pope Francis will soon descend to St. Peter's Square to greet the faithful.” Streams of believers apparently overlooked this sign and headed away from the square. However, we decided to go in the opposite direction, closer to the streets. After about twenty minutes, the crowd suddenly began to applaud: the papamobile appeared in the square and cruised through the prepared corridors as we were always used to. It occasionally stopped for the Holy Father to bless the children. It passed us by twice. Unbeknownst to me, I, along with others, captured my last living memory of Pope Francis on my phone.
On Monday around ten o'clock, we received a message that we could hardly believe after the previous experience: the pope had died. We prayed for the Holy Father and wondered what awaited us in the coming days.
One of our unknown questions was whether they would cancel the Mass we had booked long in advance for the next day at St. Peter's Basilica. However, we received no news, so we set off toward the Vatican the next day.
In the streets, the first police barriers were already visible, yet they allowed us to pass with the card that granted entry to the Vatican. We had no idea how prescient it was to set out on the journey so early. As we approached St. Peter's Basilica from the car, we noticed that there were barriers prepared at the Domus Sanctae Marthae. We dared to approach a small group that was discussing in front of the house. We addressed the Slovak papal ceremoniere Lubomír Welnitz to ask if it would be possible to pray by the body of the deceased pope today. He waved his hand, and we were allowed to proceed straight ahead.
With reverence, we entered the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where ordinary people could not enter while the pope was living. We walked to the end of the hallway into the chapel, from where Pope Francis had broadcast Masses daily during Covid, which were a great encouragement for people around the world. At that morning, the chapel was still semi-empty. People were scattered in the pews, kneeling and praying. The silence revealed the sacred respect of those present for the deceased.
We made our way to the altar. Before it lay Pope Francis in an open coffin. We approached him and bowed. The pope had peaceful closed eyes, was dressed in a red liturgical robe, held a rosary in his folded hands, wore a ring on his finger, and black shoes on his feet. A paschal candle flickered by the coffin, and there was an honor guard from the Swiss Guard. We sat in the pew and immersed ourselves in prayer. No one disturbed us by taking pictures, no one chased us away; we could kneel here as long as we wanted.
Only after twenty minutes did we rise, bowed once more to the body of our beloved pope, and etched the last glimpse of his face in our memories. We left the chapel and went to prepare for the celebration of Mass. In the underground of St. Peter's Basilica, where a number of Francis's predecessors are buried, in the chapel of Madonna della Bocciata, where the remains of our father Cardinal Josef Beran had rested for nearly fifty years, we celebrated Mass in great gratitude for Pope Francis.
P. Vojtěch Novotný