BRIDGEPORT—It was standing room only at St. Augustine Cathedral the evening of April 26, when Bishop Frank J. Caggiano offered Mass for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis, who passed away on April 21—Easter Monday.

The late pontiff had been laid to rest earlier that day in Rome, breaking with tradition in asking to be interred at the Basilica of St. Mary Major, the site of his favorite Marian icon— the Salus Populi Romani—in front of which he would pray before and after each trip he made abroad.

Saturday also marked the first day in the traditional nine-day morning period following the death of a pope, known as the “novemdiales.” This period usually commences immediately following the pontiff’s death, but as Pope Francis died during Easter week, it was delayed until the Vigil of Divine Mercy on Saturday evening.

And to Bishop Caggiano, there was no better day to celebrate Pope Francis’ legacy than on Divine Mercy Sunday. “He was truly an apostle of mercy,” the bishop said.

Bishop Caggiano reflected on the Gospel reading for that Sunday, in which St. Thomas said he would not believe Jesus had risen from the dead until he had put his hands into Christ’s wounds. And while we affectionately refer to his disbelief when we call him “Doubting Thomas,” the bishop said St. Thomas revealed something about our nature when it comes to our relationship with Christ.

Photos by Amy Mortensen

“Every human heart wants to touch God,” he said. “Yet how many times in our lives do we not feel that love—that we cannot touch him—because of the challenges we face, perhaps the suffering of others whom we love that we cannot fix? In the times of anxiety, the times of loss, the times we’re tempted to give up hope, we wonder to ourselves, ‘Where is this face of God? Where is this love present? How can I touch him?”

The bishop noted that St. Thomas had an opportunity to physically touch God in the person of Jesus Christ. But as far as we are concerned, he said, Pope Francis showed us a way for ourselves and others to also touch God and to experience his love.

“Both in his teaching and in the example of his life, he did it himself,” Bishop Caggiano said. “He challenges you and me to remind ourselves that if we want to see the face of God’s mercy, look in the mirror. If you want to see where God’s love can be made real, look into one another’s faces.”

The bishop said that Pope Francis knew this well, and he also knew that living out Christ’s example also meant going out to the peripheries, inviting those on the margins to encounter God through him.

“He dared to go where few go—and perhaps where no other pope in modern times went before him: into prisons, into drug addiction clinics, into the shops of simple cobblers,” Bishop Caggiano said. “From those who were poor and marginalized to those who were immigrants and refugees, who were dying and drowning—and the world said nothing—he went where the world did not want him to go: to mourn the deaths of the innocent, but also to allow those who survived to touch him, and by doing so, to know that God was with them every step of the way, and that God will always love them even in the darkest hour of their l i ves.”

Calling the late Holy Father an ambassador of Christ’s mercy, the bishop said it was now up to us to continue to share that message with the faithful in the same way Pope Francis did in his life and ministry. And even in death, Pope Francis continues to remind us of the mercy of God: his final resting place in the Basilica of St. Mary Major is flanked by two confessionals, reminding us of the real and readily accessible mercy of God.

“My friends, the mercy of God is real,” the bishop continued. “And if our Holy Father Francis will be remembered for anything, it will be that he courageously, zealously, faithfully, humbly never tired to scream out the mercy of God for all his children.”