On Thursday morning, the Vatican issued a statement saying Pope Francis “is still resting” at the hospital. “The night passed quietly,” the Holy See Press Office said.

Francis, 88, has been at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital since Feb. 14, after he experienced a prolonged respiratory crisis.

On Wednesday, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the Major Penitentiary, celebrated the traditional Mass beginning Lent at the Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome, and read the homily prepared by Pope Francis.

“We bow our heads in order to receive the ashes as if to look at ourselves, to look within ourselves. Indeed, the ashes help to remind us that our lives are fragile and insignificant: we are dust, from dust we were created, and to dust we shall return,” writes the pontiff.

“We learn this above all through the experience of our own fragility: Our weariness, the weaknesses we have to come to terms with, the fears that dwell in us, the failures that consume us, the fleetingness of our dreams and the realisation that what we possess is ephemeral. Made of ashes and earth, we experience fragility through illness, poverty, and the hardships that can suddenly befall us and our families,” Francis continues.

“We also experience it when, in the social and political realities of our time, we find ourselves exposed to the ‘fine dust’ that pollutes our world: ideological opposition, the abuse of power, the re-emergence of old ideologies based on identity that advocate exclusion, the exploitation of the earth’s resources, violence in all its forms and war between peoples,” the homily continues.

“This ‘toxic dust’ clouds the air of our planet impeding peaceful coexistence, while uncertainty and the fear of the future continue to increase,” he says.

In his prepared remarks, Francis said the condition of fragility “reminds us of the tragedy of death.”

“In many ways, we try to banish death from our societies, so dependent on appearances, and even remove it from our language. Death, however, imposes itself as a reality with which we have to reckon, a sign of the precariousness and brevity of our lives,” the pope writes.

“Despite the masks we wear and the cleverly crafted ploys meant to distract us, the ashes remind us of who we are. This is good for us. It reshapes us, reduces the severity of our narcissism, brings us back to reality and makes us more humble and open to one another: None of us is God; we are all on a journey,” the homily says.

Francis writes that the ashes at the beginning of Lent remind Christians of the hope to which they are called in Jesus, the Son of God, “who has taken upon himself the dust of the earth and raised it to the heights of heaven.”

“This, brothers and sisters, is the hope that restores to life the ‘ashes’ of our lives. Without such hope, we are doomed passively to endure the fragility of our human condition. Particularly when faced with the experience of death, a lack of hope can lead us to fall into sadness and desolation, and we end up reasoning like fools,” the pope writes.

On Thursday, the Vatican said Cardinal Michael Czerny, the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, will celebrate Mass on March 9 at the Vatican on the occasion of the Jubilee of the World of Volunteering.