The Pope at St Peter's to pray before the vigil. In the homily the pain for the "humiliated and murdered women".

Pope Francis went, accompanied in his wheelchair, to St Peter's Basilica to pray before this evening's Easter Vigil and greeted some of the faithful present. He went in and out of the Door of Prayer, the closest one to Casa Santa Marta where he is spending his convalescence.

The Vatican press office reported that the Pontiff would like to be present at the Urbi et Orbi on Sunday, 20 April, at the end of the Easter Mass at St. Peter's, but it will have to wait to see if his health condition will allow it.

The Pope arrived at St Peter's Basilica shortly before 6pm and stood for about a quarter of an hour, applauded by the people. He was accompanied in his wheelchair by nurse Massimiliano Strappetti and stopped to pray in front of Peter's tomb. Some of the faithful then saw him near the lift, located in the area where Michelangelo's Pieta is, which leads to the Loggia or the Apostolic Palace. He then went back to the basilica, greeted by the great affection of the many pilgrims present at St Peter's at that moment, and returned to Casa Santa Marta. The Loggia is the place where the Pope traditionally imparts the Urbi et Orbi blessing at Easter and Christmas.

Pope, in the text of his homily for the Easter Vigil, invites to "become messengers of hope, builders of hope while so many winds of death are still blowing over us". He invites for this in "words", "small daily gestures", "choices inspired by the Gospel". "Our whole life can be a presence of hope. We want to be," the Pope writes in the homily read by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, "for those who have surrendered or have their backs bent under the burdens of life", "for all the poor and oppressed of the Earth; for the humiliated and murdered women; for the unborn and abused children; for the victims of war. To each and everyone we bring the hope of Easter!", Francis' invitation.

For the third year in a row, the Pope did not physically participate in the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum (led again this year by Cardinal Vicar Baldo Reina in his stead). The meditations written by Francis contain a denunciation of a world 'in pieces', dominated by calculations and algorithms, where ruthless logic and the interests of the strongest prevail.