There was a reason why Pope Francis set aside the homily he had prepared for the open-air Mass at the Tacloban airport Saturday—and it was personal.
“Every time we are in a particular intense situation,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi SJ said at a press briefing several hours after the papal delegation had safely returned to Manila, the Pope feels the need to speak “from the heart.” The Pope’s homily, delivered in his native Spanish and then translated into English, moved many in the crowd gathered at the airport in the middle of a typhoon to tears. Lombardi estimated the crowd size at between 200,000 and 300,000.
“If he is tired,” Lombardi said, the Pope will usually read the prepared statement straight. But “if he feels the emotion, and the strength is there to express [his thoughts] spontaneously, then he speaks from the heart.”
Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, the Archbishop of Manila, concelebrated the Mass in Tacloban. “I sort of suspected that something like that would happen when we were told that the Mass would be made simpler,” with fewer concelebrants. “And then Monsignor [Mark Gerard] Miles was asked to be there. And so …”
In his homily, Francis revealed that he had decided to go to the Philippines when he saw the impact of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” on Tacloban and other areas. “I’d like to tell you something close to my heart. When I saw from Rome that catastrophe I had to be here. And on those very days I decided to come here. I am here to be with you – a little bit late, but I’m here.”
Memorably, he also spoke of the necessity of silent witness in the face of such great tragedy. “So many of you have lost everything. I don’t know what to say to you. But the Lord does know what to say to you. Some of you have lost part of your families. All I can do is keep silence and walk with you all with my silent heart.”
In the press briefing, Lombardi said the experience in Tacloban was “a paradigmatic situation.” He said the Pope had worked on the prepared texts in English, “but he feels sometimes he can express better thoughts spontaneously.”
He added: “Also because he has a wonderful translator.”