November 3, 2025, Rome Italy: POPE LEO XIV, 70, uses a aspergillum, a liturgical tool used to sprinkle holy water, as he celebrates giving his first Requiem Mass on the day dedicated to the deceased in the Verano Monument cemetery in Rome. The annual Mass offered in suffrage for the souls of Cardinals and Bishops who have died in the course of the past year, Pope prayed that “their souls might be washed from every stain” and that they might “shine like stars in the sky.” Expressing his hope that “their spiritual encouragement might reach us, still pilgrims on earth, in the silence of prayer: Hope in God: for I shall again praise Him, my help and my God. The ‘flavor’ of Christian hope In particular, with great affection for the elect soul of late Pope Francis, who died after opening the Holy Door and imparting the Easter Blessing to Rome and the whole world.” The Jubilee Year, he said, gives this Mass “a distinctive flavor – the flavor of Christian hope.” The Holy Father highlighted the message of the Gospel account of the disciples of Emmaus, whose encounter with the Risen Christ offers “a vivid representation of the pilgrimage of hope.” (Credit Image: © Evandro Inetti/ZUMA Press Wire)

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