Brother Martin High School students, faculty, and several parents recently participated in an Easter Mass celebrated by Fr. Tony Rigoli, OMI in the Robert M. Conlin Gymnasium. After Mass, Principal Ryan Gallagher '00 shared a letter from Bro. Ronald Hingle '78, S.C., Provincial of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in the United States, regarding the passing of Pope Francis.

"Dear Partners in Mission and Friends,

We join as a community with the larger Church and the world in mourning the passing of our Holy Father, Pope Francis. He touched all of us by his modeling humility and compassion, by his preaching, in word and example, the mercy of God and God's concern for the poor and marginalized, and by his calling us to synodality, to justice and peace, and to greater care for each other and for creation.

Over the course of his 12-year pontificate, Pope Francis provided us with many lasting images, memories, and one liners. Who can forget those first pictures of the pope ...
- who bowed before the people to ask their prayers for God's blessing on him before he blesses them;
- who boarded a bus with the cardinals to go to dinner after the conclave;
- who carried his own luggage and paid his own hotel bill;
- who rode, not in the papal limousine, but in a modest, economy vehicle

Let us pray for the peaceful repose of Pope Francis, and let us hold in our hearts the cardinals who now must go to Rome to fill the vacant chair of Peter; may they be inspired by the Spirit and moved by the life and mission of Pope Francis. Let us hold one another in prayer, as well.

In His Heart,
Ronnie H.

Brother Ronald Hingle, S.C."