Pope Francis interacts with Palm Sunday crowd

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, marking Palm Sunday in a packed St. Peter’s Square, ignored his prepared homily and spoke entirely off-the-cuff in a remarkable departure from practice. Later, he continued to stray from the script by hopping off his popemobile to pose for “selfies” with young people and also sipping tea passed to him from the crowd.

In his homily, Francis called on people, himself included, to look into their own hearts to see how they are living their lives.

Additional Photos

Pope Francis kisses a baby at the close of the Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Sunday. The Associated Press

“Has my life fallen asleep?” Francis asked after listening to a Gospel account of how Jesus’ disciples fell asleep shortly before he was betrayed by Judas before his crucifixion.

“Am I like Pontius Pilate, who, when he sees the situation is difficult, washes my hands?”

He sounded tired, frequently pausing to catch his breath, as he spoke for about 15 minutes in his homily during Palm Sunday Mass.

“Where is my heart?” the pope asked, pinpointing that as the “question which accompanies us” throughout Holy Week.

Francis seemed to regain his wind after the 21/2 hour ceremony. He had barely climbed aboard his popemobile when he spotted youths clamoring for a “selfie” with a pope, and he hopped off, not even waiting for the vehicle to fully stop, to oblige them.

In another moment in the pope’s long tour of the square, the Vatican’s security chief poured herbal mate tea from a thermos, thrust toward the pontiff by someone in the crowd, into a mate cup, also held out by an admirer, and passed the cup to Francis for a sip.

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