Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was laid to rest at St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, on Thursday.
The former pope died on December 31 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery inside the Vatican.
Pope Benedict XVI, 95, who served from April 2005 to February 2013, was the first pope to step down because of ill health in 600 years.
The Mass, which was conducted as it would be for a sitting pope, was attended by as many as 100,000 people, and it was held in St. Peter’s Square.
On Thursday morning, the body of Pope Emeritus Benedict was carried before crows in a traditional cypress wood coffin and laid in front of the historic St. Peter’s Basilica. Both a serious and historic occasion, it was.
More than 100 cardinals, 400 bishops, and nearly 4,000 priests from all over the world were there among the tens of thousands who had congregated in the shadow of St. Peter’s.
Pope Francis who presided over the funeral asked that the angels lead the late pope into paradise and grant him eternal rest.
Pope Francis, is the first pope to preside over the funeral of his predecessor Benedict XVI at the Vatican, an unprecedented event in modern times expected to draw tens of thousands of people.
Pope Francis further asked that God grants unto the living faithful the assurance of hope and faith.
“Benedict, a faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever,” Pope Francis said.
“The Lord quietly bestows the spirit of meekness that is ready to understand, accept, hope and risk. It is the source of an unseen and elusive fruitfulness, born of his knowing the One in whom he has placed his trust.”
“Holding fast to the Lord’s last words and to the witness of His entire life, we too want to follow in His steps and to commend our brother into the hands of the Father.
“God’s faithful people now accompany and entrust to Him the life of the one who was their pastor. Like the women at the tomb, we too have come with the fragrance of gratitude and the balm of hope, in order to show Him once more the love that is undying”
See some photos from the event below:
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