The Pope traveled by pope-mobile for about six miles from Ciudad Juarez to the border between Mexico and the United States.
Before starting Mass, Pope Francis wanted to stop at this cross that can be seen from both sides.
He laid a bouquet of flowers underneath the cross to pay respect to all that have lost their lives trying to cross the Rio Grande. He prayed facing towards the United States.
Then he blessed the people who participated in the ceremony from the other side, in El Paso.
This was the last Mass the Pope held in Mexico and the first in history with a border in between. On one side, there were more than 200,000 pilgrims in attendance on the Mexican border and over 50,000 on the United States border.
Pope Francis used this crosier that was given to him be the prison inmates of Ciudad Juarez, who he visited hours earlier.
The Pope focused his homily on the suffering of those who try to pass 'the other side.â? By doing so, he made the migrants plight the epicenter of his discourse.
POPE FRANCIS
'The enslaved, the imprisoned and extorted; so many of these brothers and sisters of ours are the consequence of a trade in human beings.â?
He recalled that migration has become a global phenomenon and a humanitarian crisis that can not be measured solely in numbers.
POPE FRANCIS
'This crisis which can be measured in numbers and statistics, we want instead to measure with names, stories, families.â?
He explained that poverty, injustice, drug trafficking and organized crimes are forms of violence and growing concerns among the youth in Ciudad Juarez. Especially, with many young women who end up victims of terrible femicide.
POPE FRANCIS
'Injustice is radicalized in the young; they are 'cannon fodderâ?, persecuted and threatened when they try to flee the spiral of violence and the hell of drugs. Then there are the many womenunjustly robbed of their lives.â?
With a burst of energy, Pope Francis asked the following.
POPE FRANCIS
'No more death! No more exploitation! There is still time to change, there is still a way out and a chance, time to implore the mercy of God.â?
Finally, he praised and thanked the work of those who help migrants. He defined it as a 'light at the end of the tunnel.â? With that said, he did not want to finish his homily without greeting those who attended the ceremony on the other side. He said that no border can divide the love of God.
At the end of the ceremony, the Pope thanked the Mexican people for their hospitality during these days and even made a small confession.
POPE FRANCIS
'I assure you there sometime felt like I had to mourn to see so much hope in a people so I suffered.â?
The Pope asked them to pray for him and ended the Mass praying to the patron saint, Our Lady of Guadalupe.
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