Vatican City, Jul 31, 2019 / 04:46 am
Pope Francis took advantage of his lighter summer schedule to make a surprise visit to a convalescing Daughter of Charity earlier this week.
Sr. Maria Mucci, 74, has spent her entire religious life serving guests and Pope Francis in the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta. Since undergoing a surgery in October, she has been recovering in the infirmary at her congregation's provincial house in Rome.
Pope Francis made a brief visit to see Mucci at the Regina Mundi House in the evening July 28. He also greeted the other religious sisters of the Daughters of Charity and stopped by the congregation's chapel to venerate a first-class relic of St. John Paul II.
The Daughters of Charity were gifted St. John Paul II's bloodstained shirt by Rome's Gemelli Hospital. It was the shirt the Polish pope was wearing May 13, 1981, when he was shot in the chest in St. Peter's Square.