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CNN's Special Coverage on the Transfer of the Coffin of Pope Francis from Casa Santa Marta Chapel to St. Peter's Basilica. Aired 3- 4a ET
Aired April 23, 2025 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00]
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to our special coverage to everybody around the world watching, and in the United States. I'm Anderson Cooper.
ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: And I'm Isa Soares, coming to you live from Rome, where it's just gone 9 a.m. as we begin, of course, special coverage of the procession that will take Pope Francis' coffin to St. Peter's Basilica.
We have already started seeing so many people making their way to this square, trying to get a glimpse, of course, and pay their respects to Pope Francis. And as we are talking, as we are starting off here, we are looking at live pictures out of Vatican City, where really this historic moment is about to unfold. And this is at the Chapel of Casa Santa Marta, where the Pope has been lying in rest.
Private ceremonies, many have been able to see him, including our own Christopher Lamb, who joins us now.
And Christopher, we're about to see the beginning of this procession, simple in many ways, because that's how we wanted to see. Talk us through what we are likely to see in the coming moments, as we get these images coming to us from inside the Chapel of Casa Santa Marta.
CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now the Pope is in the coffin in the Chapel of the Casa Santa Marta, where he lived throughout his pontificate, and where he has been laid out to rest in the last hours.
And we're going to see that coffin move from the Santa Marta to St. Peter's Basilica, and a service will be led by Cardinal Farrell, who is the Camerlengo, who is basically in charge of the Vatican during a Papal Interregnum.
COOPER: He's running the day-to-day operations right now in conjunction with other Cardinals.
LAMB: That's right. He is basically manning the shop of the Vatican during this time. COOPER: He's the same Cardinal, the Camerlengo, who sealed the Pope's
official apartments.
LAMB: Exactly. So he has certain ceremonial duties when the Pope dies, and then it's his job to effectively ensure the Vatican keeps running. He can't make big or significant decisions, but he has to make sure that things are sort of ticking over whilst the period of the conclave is going on.
COOPER: It's only a far distance from Santa Marta to the Basilica, so the procession won't be that long. What happens once they are inside?
LAMB: Once they are inside, they are going to go up to the altar and they are going to have this service, a liturgy of the word, which is basically the praying of psalms. There will be a number of psalms that will be sung and said.
Then there will be a litany of the saints, so invoking the intercession of the saints that is customary when someone dies.
And then there's going to be a reading of the gospel, a gospel passage. And then we're going to have the final antiphon, a hymn to the Virgin Mary sung.
So a simple service, and I think that will be fitting, really.
SOARES: Do we have audio on this? Can we turn it up? If we do, please.
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CARDINAL KEVIN FERRELL, CAMERLENGO OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH (through translator): Dear brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow we now accompany the mortal remains of our Pope Francis to the Vatican Basilica, where he often exercised his ministry as Bishop of the Church, which is in Rome, and as Pastor of the Universal Church.
As we now leave this home, let us thank the Lord for the countless gifts that he bestowed on the Christian people through his servant, Pope Francis.
Let us ask him, in his mercy and kindness, to grant the late Pope an eternal home in the kingdom of heaven, and to comfort with celestial hope the papal family, the Church in Rome, and the faithful throughout the world.
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Look kindly, Lord, on the life and works of your servant, Pope Francis.
Welcome him into the dwelling of perpetual light and peace, and grant that your faithful people may follow fervently in his footsteps, bearing witness to the gospel of Jesus, who lives and reigns forever and ever.
(LIVE VIDEO FEED ENDS) COOPER: This is where the Pope has resided during his entire papacy, famously choosing much far humbler lodgings than he could have had in the papal apartments. You were actually, you were there yesterday, you were able to see Pope Francis lying in rest. What was that like?
LAMB: Well, it was a very emotional moment, because obviously as someone who's covered the Francis papacy very closely, it's been, you know, reporting on him has been a big part of my life. So to see him laid out like that was very moving. It brought back a lot of, you know, memories and emotions, and I imagine it's similar for the cardinals there, who I can see are gathered now in the chapel.
I think it is a very powerful moment when you see someone who you knew well laid out after they've died. So I imagine for everyone who knew the Pope, this will be a very powerful moment.
COOPER: You know, as a reporter is one thing, but also as a person of faith or a person who's interested in faith, and to have followed this man so closely and seen him day-to-day and interacting with so many people in the way that he did, it must have been very touching.
LAMB: Very touching, because yes, it's a job to cover the Pope, but also it's a personal thing as well, because --
COOPER: It's a choice you make, it's a passion of yours.
LAMB: Exactly. Obviously, follow the professional norms of journalism, but it is something that is, you can't fail to be touched at these moments.
SOARES: And I thought it was quite interesting when you and I were talking yesterday, how you said you had the opportunity, of course, to see him, to pay your respects to him, but so many others that work within the Vatican, you know, whether they're cooks, cleaners, have that moment, some of them laying flowers, that is very much a Francis thing, something he would have wanted, no doubt.
LAMB: Absolutely, and there were a huge number queuing up yesterday. I imagine virtually everyone who works in the Vatican, several thousand employees, was queuing up to see the Pope, he was hugely popular.
COOPER: We're now seeing the Pope being moved, this is the beginning of what will be the procession to St. Peter's Basilica. Do we know, is he going to be brought in a vehicle? Do we know exactly how this will --
LAMB: We don't know, but I imagine it will be some sort of vehicle, it's a very short --
COOPER: It's about a 10-minute walk or so.
SOARES: Less than three kilometers, I understand.
COOPER: I also just want to note for our viewers who are watching, we are going to as much as possible, we want you to experience this as anybody who is there present where our cameras are would experience it. We will try to not speak over as much as possible, it may be a little bit difficult at times, but that is our hope, we want you to experience this over the next hour as somebody in St. Peter's would experience it.
SOARES: And adding to what Anderson is saying, even those moments of pauses that are so important, I think we're seeing one now, if I'm just going to pause for one second, I think a silence for a second for prayer, let's just have a look.
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COOPER: Christopher, just tell us, you're actually seeing a lot of cardinals in this, at the beginning of this procession, which tells you that a lot of cardinals have already come to the city.
LAMB: Yes, that's right, it's clear from looking at the cardinals who are processing in, a number of them are not the Rome-based cardinals, they're the cardinals who are based in the church around the world.
And they've obviously come in, just seeing Cardinal Tagle, there and Cardinal Parolin walking past, and there's Cardinal Re, who is the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who will have a very important role presiding at the funeral of the Pope and the logistics of the conclave.
But yes, I can see that a number of cardinals have now come into Rome to be here for the funeral, and of course, the most important job they have, to elect a new Pope.
SOARES: We've just heard in the last few minutes the bells, in fact, we're continuing to hear the bells tolling for Pope Francis. His body is being accompanied by an honor guard, we're being told, of Swiss guards as the procession begins, of course, transferring his body from Casa Santa Marta, where he resided, all the way to Lyon State at St. Peter's Basilica, which is roughly, well, less than three kilometers, so it's a not very long journey here.
COOPER: Let's take you back to this extraordinary procession.
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COOPER: We're going to have to take a short break, we'll be back momentarily with more of the procession.
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COOPER: We'll return to the procession of Pope Francis. Let's listen in.
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LAMB: So we're seeing the coffin, the casket of Pope Francis being carried by the people known as the Gentlemen of His Holiness, the sort of officials who work in the papal household, and the Swiss Guards in their distinctive uniforms, colorful striped uniforms, are processing alongside the coffin as it's being transferred now.
You get a sense at this moment, this is how the Catholic Church, with its ceremonies and its traditions, says goodbye to those who have died. This is the start of the farewell of the Pope, and obviously there's the use and invocation of the ancient prayers, the psalms.
It's almost a tried and tested way of saying goodbye to someone and processing that grief that many will be feeling at this time.
SOARES: Can I ask you, how much of a say would Pope Francis have had, so much of the procession route, but more in terms of the psalms and the prayers?
LAMB: I think that there is a sort of formula that will be used. I'm not sure he would have necessarily chosen the specific psalms, but we know that he wanted his farewell to be a simplified affair. But there is a set liturgy and structure for saying goodbye to the Pope, for the receiving of the coffin, the casket, and then of course the prayers around that, and then moving into the funeral on Saturday.
COOPER: It's so extraordinary to watch this though. This is the leader of the Catholic Church, more than a billion people, being carried on the shoulders of human beings through the streets of Rome as it would have been done centuries ago.
LAMB: Exactly. You have a sort of link with history when you see this moment. I think the Pope always talked about fraternity and brotherhood, and there's a sense here that he's being carried by his closest collaborators, those who worked with him, in a sense of fraternity, which he would have liked to have seen.
SOARES: And of course as he makes his way, he will make his way to St. Peter's Basilica, his funeral will be on the square, and that is so symbolic too, isn't it?
Again, symbolism on the square, almost like open arms and being yet again with the people. It's very much in line with how he lived his life, isn't it?
LAMB: That's right. He always said that the Church must be open to everyone, todos, he said on a number of occasions, and I think he would have wanted as many people to be able to see him for one last time and to say their farewells.
COOPER: I heard that he had in the last year or so, or two years, simplified this service as much as possible to make it a service for a pastor as opposed to a person of great significance. LAMB: That's right, and that was a driving theme of the Francis pontificate. He didn't want to be a Pope who was a monarch, he wanted to be a Pope who was a bishop, a shepherd, close to his people. He wanted a church that was a sort of inverted pyramid, where those at the top were at the bottom serving the people who he saw as the most important.
[03:20:07]
And I think in his death and in his funeral rites and liturgies, we're going to see that come through.
COOPER: We learned yesterday of something that Francis wrote back in February about death, and I just want to read what he said, it's in the prologue to a book by a cardinal that's being released this week. He wrote, "death is not the end of everything but the beginning of something."
A new beginning, Pope Francis called it, because we will experience something that we have never fully experienced, eternity.
LAMB: That's right. This was a Pope who always saw the hope in difficult situations. He was able, even in death, to see the hope that is possible.
And of course that's a very Catholic understanding, in the Catholic prayers it says, when someone dies, in death, life is not ended but changed. And so he wanted to underline that, I think, in those words.
SOARES: And as we're looking at these truly moving and incredible images out of Vatican City, we can see from our perspective here, I'm sure you can too, the open coffin, the open casket. And there's so much symbolism, of course, in what he's wearing. I had seen, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, that he even has a silver ring that he wore since he was a bishop, since he was in, of course, in Buenos Aires.
But also the rosary and the importance of that rosary, specifically given where he's going to lie and where he's going to be interred.
LAMB: Exactly, the Marian devotion, or the devotion to the Virgin Mary that he had, is symbolized with the rosary around his hands. That's often seen, or has been seen in the past with other popes, but it's significant he's got the ring, the bishop's ring, that he wore in Buenos Aires, and which he wore for much of the time as pope.
Of course, when he was elected, he didn't accept some of the finery and the trappings of office. He wanted to ensure that he was still close to his roots, and he always wore the ring and the pectoral cross, which had the image of the Good Shepherd on it.
SOARES: But in terms of everything else that we are seeing, in terms of everything else he's wearing, that's very much traditionally in line with what we're seeing. I know the red is very much, body and blood of Christ. COOPER: And who gets to carry the casket, do you mean?
LAMB: It is the people, or the men, who are known as the gentlemen of His Holiness. Basically, they are people who assist the pope in his day-to-day work, and you can see them carrying the casket now.
So they work very closely with the pope in the papal apartments.
Let's go back into this, and let's just listen to the sounds.
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SOARES: And as you can see there, the coffin of Pope Francis, making its way there, St. Peter's Square. You have seen the crowds. We've heard some of them clapping as his coffin passed, his casket passed in front of them, but very much a solemn mood in St. Peter's Square as we see the pope's body being moved, of course, inside Vatican City, inside St. Peter's Basilica, where he will lie in state.
COOPER: Christopher, for this Pope, it was important that he allow people to see his decline, that he, it was not hidden, it was not shunned, it was, I mean, to his last, he was out on the balcony in his final days. He wanted one last trip in the popemobile to surprise the 50,000 people who were there. Can you talk about why that was important?
LAMB: I think it was very important for the Pope to show that he was unafraid, to embrace that fragility, that frailty that he went through. He often talked about the elderly being part of this throwaway culture, that when someone is old or frail or sick then they're thrown away and they're not looked at by the world or society.
He wanted to put that suffering that he had front and center and to try and make that suffering of value. Obviously, it was very difficult for him. At the end, the final trip around St Peter's Square, I was there. I could see he was really not well, but he was determined to have one last time amongst the people in St Peter's.
He was the first pope who was willing to be pushed around in a wheelchair. He embraced that. John Paul II obviously had mobility problems, but he was never seen in a wheelchair, whereas Francis was happy to be pushed around in a wheelchair.
He often said, despite his physical ailments, the church is governed with the head, not the legs. He really wanted to normalize that idea that someone could be a leader and also have that frailty.
COOPER: We also learned yesterday that he thanked the nurse who had been his companion for several years, helping by his side through his medical troubles. He thanked that nurse for helping him to return to the square one last time. LAMB: That's right. Before he went out into the square, he said to the
nurse, do you think I can do this? The nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, was by Francis' side throughout all his health difficulties. He trusted this nurse, the male nurse, because this nurse said to him in 2021, when he had a health problem, you must go to the hospital and have an operation.
From that moment on, Francis always trusted this nurse, Strappetti, who was also at his side when he died.
SOARES: I remember when he was in hospital for 40 days or so with double pneumonia. I remember you and I speaking at that moment. Then he left the hospital, he allowed the nurse to speak to the media and to really explain and be very open about what Pope Francis was going through, showing him to be human like every single other person.
LAMB: Yes. He was unafraid to share some of the gory details about the health crisis he was going through. And he ordered the Vatican to release those detailed medical updates.
COOPER: Let's return to this procession as Pope Francis returns to St. Peter's Basilica for what will be the last time.
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SOARES: And Pope Francis' coffin, as you can see, making his way entering now, as you can see, St. Peter's Basilica for one last time.
COOPER: Christopher, explain what we are going to be seeing what and what is happening right now.
LAMB: Well, what we're hearing now is the litany of the saints. The saints are being invoked. Their intercession is being requested for Pope Francis, which is an ancient Catholic tradition in prayer.
[03:35:05]
They're going through the full list of saints. There's quite a lot by name.
But by name. Individually, they're saying the name of the saint and then they're saying pray for us.
COOPER: Can you read some of functions what they'd be saying?
LAMB: Well, we have St. Peter and St. Paul, of course. St. Peter, Catholics believe, is the first pope. St. Andrew, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Philip, St. Bartholomew, the apostles. And St. Stephen.
COOPER: Each time they're saying pray for us.
LAMB: Pray for us. COOPER: This will be -- can you explain the service we are about to see?
LAMB: Well, we're seeing, what we're going to see is a liturgy of the word, which is, the basic reading of scriptures and Psalms, to pray for the Pope and to lay his coffin, his casket into St. Peter's.
COOPER: And he will lie here.
LAMB: Yes.
COOPER: For three days.
LAMB: We're now seeing the coffin being placed in front of the altar. It's very close to the tomb of St. Peter. That's where he's being laid now.
This is where Catholics believe the remains of St. Peter, the first pope, are found. And, of course, it is the Catholic belief that the pope follows a direct line from St. Peter, St. Francis, the 266th successor, of St. Peter. So hugely symbolic that he's laid, there in that position, in St. Peter's beneath the high altar, of where he celebrated masses on many occasions where he led services, and now he lays, in front of that altar, the people to, pay their respects and pray.
SOARES: As we're looking at these incredibly moving, stunning images, is that camerlengo -- that's Cardinal Kevin Farrell.
COOPER: Who's the accompanying--
LAMB: Yes.
COOPER: Who is the chamberlain now with the Vatican running day to day operation?
SOARES: I'm not in charge. And as they as we hear the prayers, it reminds me of the sentence, Christopher, that that we kept hearing from the pope since 2013. Pray for me. Is it is the famous saying that we he often, that we often heard from him. Is it not?
LAMB: Every time he met people, pray for me, and then he used would joke to people, pray for me, not against.
COOPER: Let's listen in.
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COOPER: We're here with Christopher Lamb, Vatican correspondent. Talk if you can, Christopher, just talk a little bit, again about what we're hearing now and also what we will be seeing in the minutes to come. LAMB: We are and soon we're still seeing, and hearing the, invocation
to the saints. They are listing this different saints in the history of the Catholic Church and at the end of saying the name of the saint, they're saying ora pro eo which is pray for him. So they're specifically asking the saints to intercede for Pope Francis.
I already said that they're saying pray for us. I should have said pray they're saying pray for him.
Now we're then going to have a reading from the scriptures from the gospel and the very famous and important Catholic prayer for someone who's died. They're going to say eternal rest, grant unto him, and may perpetual light shine upon him.
So the words are well quite poetic, but also ancient and part of the tradition, the Christian tradition, which goes right back to the early church.
COOPER: It always is. Is he chosen not to be buried in Vatican City?
LAMB: That is right. He is, decided to be buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the first pope in 300 years to decide to do that.
COOPER: There are seven other popes who are buried there. Is that right?
LAMB: That is right. There are other popes who are buried there, but Francis had a devotion to that basilica. He used to go to pray in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary there before and after every foreign trip. And he felt, I think, a sense of being at home there, and it has a strong connection with the church Latin America of course, of the Argentinian folk.
SOARES: And he's but I think he visited Santa Maria Maggiore, that church about 125 times, every time he came from a trip.
And as we're looking at these images, I assume, Chris, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that there will be a loud speaker so that those who are outside, be a Catholic or non-Catholics, non-Christians, will be listening in, to the words of the gospel here?
LAMB: I believe there will be. Yes.
Another important thing to note is one of the changes that Francis made to the funeral burial rites is as you can see he's in an open casket. Now, previous popes were laid out on crimson cushions in this certain style way. He said, no, I want to be in a casket.
I want to be like a normal Christian. I don't want a sort of special way of being laid out. That's quite significant, I think.
SOARES: Simple wooden casket.
LAMB: Exactly. Also, the past popes were buried in three coffins. Wooden, zinc, and iron. And Francis said no, just the wooden. COOPER: He wants to be buried in the earth, in in the ground without
much adornment on any kind of, marker with just the one word, Franciscus.
LAMB: That's right. Again, very significant. No inscription, just his name emphasizing the simplicity and humility that were the hallmarks of his pontificate.
Of course, the first pope to call himself after St. Francis of Assisi who was the very radical saint of poverty and humility and Francis tried to model himself on St. Francis and is clearly trying or has done that in his death as well.
SOARES: Yes.
LAMB: Of course, he also arranged for the cost of the burial to be covered.
SOARES: Which is that is, you know, in death, like in life. Right?
COOPER: He's not charged that the Vatican will not be charged for this.
LAMB: Yes. Exactly. He was always quite concerned about the management of money. Of course, he inherited a Vatican that was in the financial crisis and did a lot of reforms to Vatican finances.
[03:45:02]
And when it came to money, he said that the devil enters through the pockets. So he was very careful about money. But also, it's a -- I think it's a symbol that he wants to show that the pope can pay for his own funeral.
SOARES: Yes. And I think I may no doubt have endeared him to so many right around the world, like you were saying, whether, you know, you're Christian or Catholic or from other faiths, there is that simplicity, that humility to him that I think probably resonated with so many others. He spoke a language that so many understood.
COOPER: It's extraordinary to me that for I mean, for anybody in the United States who has gotten up early to watch this, and I certainly appreciate that, we are witnessing something which nobody, as far as I know, alive right now has witnessed. This procession is not something we have ever seen before. There were not other popes who lived in Santa Marta who had to be then brought to the basilica.
LAMB: Absolutely.
COOPER: So this procession, that procession through the streets was something that if you are up and you've watched, you've witnessed something, I mean, I don't think anybody has seen before.
LAMB: It's truly historic. So in the past, the popes lived in the Papal Apartments, which is connected to the basilica and they would have just been brought down. Whereas because the Pope lived in the Santa Marta, there has been this procession, this moment where people could see him in the square and then, processing through St. Peter's Basilica like that.
That was extremely powerful with the light shining through the windows of the Basilica as the Pope's casket was brought in.
SOARES: And this is, of course, a moment incredibly solemn moment, but a moment as well of grief for so many, especially those, of course, who like you said, many were carrying, his coffin, his casket on their shoulders.
Incredibly moving moment, no doubt, for so many of those who worked with him over the past 30 years.
LAMB: That he wanted to be carried by his collaborators like that. It's very powerful. I think from his home to the basilica, you know, it wasn't a sort of elaborate transfer.
COOPER: They could have shut off the streets. They could have had coverings that nobody saw the transfer. He wanted people again to not be to not hide death, to not hide decay, to not hide the journey that he is now on.
LAMB: Exactly. And as you were saying, what he wrote in that book about death not being the end, but the opening of something new, I think he doesn't want that to be hidden away.
And, of course, this was a Pope who was hugely accessible to people. He met so many people, and, in death, he wants to be accessible as well for that one last time.
COOPER: It's so important too because, I mean, in so many societies now today, we don't talk about death. We don't talk about grief. It's taboo in a way that it never used to be hundreds of years ago. People lived with surrounded by death before their antibiotics and now it's it is the -- something we all experience and yet are not really granted permission to speak about it, to weep openly.
This is his teaching of it's okay to see this. It's okay to go to witness this. And not only okay, it's crucial.
LAMB: Absolutely. I think you've hit the net on the head and this is the Catholic Church is where you saying goodbye processing that grief. Now, of course, the church through its long history has developed these prayers and rituals to deal with death. The Catholic Church has a long experience and tradition of facing death and having the prayers and the liturgies in order for people to grieve, to say goodbye to someone.
This is what we're seeing now. It's been developed over centuries and yes perhaps today people don't have that experience. They're as long as they don't know quite how to say goodbye to someone whereas in this ceremony we're seeing now is a kind of tried and tested way of holding people together and allowing them to grieve.
COOPER: It sends a message to so many people who are watching this right now who are grieving, who have lost somebody in their life and feel alone in that grief. This is a message that you are not alone, that this is something that comes to all of us and that we are all witness to and part of and all will experience. And there's a great, commonality in that.
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LAMB: Exactly. And that, invocation of the saints, that praying to the saints, that's the idea that the next world is not so far away in Catholic understanding so there's a connection between this world and the next world and in a sense that's the sort of spirituality and the transcendent understanding of God. That God isn't far away, that God is close.
SOARES: And what I've always admired as a Catholic from this pope is that openness that Anderson and you, Christopher, were just talking about. And that when you have the church, you know, he always went out to his flock. I think that was so important. And that opens up the church to so many others right around the world where we've seen, for example, the Asia Pacific. The growth of the Catholic church that this moment, this openness is so important.
LAMB: Absolutely. And that was Francis' mission and vision for the papacy. He wanted to go out to the margins of society. He wants to go to the emerging churches that are, you know, sometimes forgotten on the peripheries, particularly the Asia Pacific. I was on the trip with him to Indonesia and across Southeast Asia.
We could see there the church is really growing and perhaps in those parts of the world where, you know, life isn't as easy and perhaps there is more of an experience of death then perhaps that's why faith is also more prevalent because of that suffering and because the difficulties in those parts of the world and that's where the church really is sometimes at its most impactful.
SOARES: And we have -- and is about, just almost top of the hour, but about nine minutes sort of before the hour. But I would just say that, you know, whilst we're seeing, this incredibly moving and solemn moment, the basilica, will be open and just so you can see the turnaround here will be open to the public from 11 a.m.
So in just over an hour, visitors, worshipers, pilgrims will be able to go inside and pay their final respects. And gratitude, I think this is something I heard so much yesterday. Just the gratitude from so many people from all walks of life.
LAMB: And not just Catholics because this was a Pope who connected with other Christians who were not part of the Catholic Church, and other faiths.
COOPER: Let's listen in.
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[03:55:00] UNKNOWN (voice-over): Now in this shortened form of the liturgy of the word, we'll now hear the gospel taken from the gospel of St. John chapter 17 verses 24 through 26.
The deacon who will read the gospel receives the blessing from the presider, Cardinal Kevin Farrell.
He proceeds to the high altar to process with the book of the Gospels to the ambo.
We will hear in Latin the deacon invite the congregation to prayer with their traditional, the Lord be with you. We will respond, and with your spirit. And he will announce the reading of the gospel according to John.
The deacon incenses the book of the gospels.
At that time, Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and praying said, father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me from the foundation of the world.
