Pilgrims and tourists who had just one day earlier flocked to St. Peter’s Square awoke to the news that Pope Francis, who had greeted them there on Easter Sunday, had died. Pope Francis died at at 88, a few weeks after returning to his apartment at the Vatican following a five-week hospitalization for pneumonia.

Calling Pope Francis “a modern-day prophet,” Kerry Alys Robinson said the late pope “read the signs of the times and awakened us to meaningful change in our behavior — within the Church and within the world.”

In his brief final testament, Pope Francis asked to be buried at Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major and said he had offered his suffering for peace in the world.

Pope Francis, history’s first pope from the global south and a maverick who often delighted the world, died April 21 after fighting pulmonary disease for the last few months.

Just as hundreds of people had gathered at the Vatican each night to recite the rosary when Pope Francis was hospitalized, throngs returned to recite the Marian prayer for the repose of his soul after his death.