Vatican and faithful bid farewell to Benedict XVI in unusual ceremony – Church

“Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear the Lord’s voice finally and forever,” Pope Francis said Thursday in his homily during the funeral mass for the late former pope in St. Peter’s Square in Rome . You have to know that Jesus is often referred to as the bridegroom in the Catholic Church. “We, too, firmly united to the Lord’s last words and to the witness that shaped his life, want to follow in his footsteps as an ecclesial community and entrust our brother to the Father’s hands,” the Pope continued. And: “Like the women at the tomb in the Gospel, so we are here with the fragrance of gratitude and the anointing of hope, to show him once more the love that never fails. We want this with the same anointing and wisdom, with the same sensitivity and the same dedication that he has given us over the years.”