20000 people attend papal mass at Madison Square Garden in New York

The city of Philadelphia is making preparations ahead of the arrival of Pope Francis on Saturday. The 78-year-old ended his full day in NYC by holding a star-studded mass at Madison Square Garden. And that was after a big night!

“A selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged”, he said.

In reality, however, Francis is rooting environmental stewardship in human dignity and orienting it toward God, the Creator, as he did in his ecology encyclical Laudato Si’.

Each religious leader recited a peace prayer in a native language…blending into one voice – for peace. 11 Memorial and Museum, where he met with 9/11 victims’ families and participated in a service.

The pope had visited ground zero earlier in the day, participating in an interreligious service for peace. “Here grief is palpable”. He greeted 4th and 5th graders from Our Lady Queen of Angels. Can I do that? “That’s why he’s using this theme, to get in the points”, he said.

Musically, Pope Francis follows the lead of Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who also released albums during their papal tenures, though surely to not as much fanfare. “That is nice!”

Once again, the hugely popular pope focused on society’s most vulnerable during his last public remarks in the country’s financial capital, a city of extreme wealth and poverty. It also illustrates the Roman Catholic Church’s struggles with changing times, diminishing congregations and a dwindling priesthood… But at the United Nations, he signaled that the Church was not ready to champion transgender rights, an issue of growing importance in the United States as gay equality becomes mainstream. Then they put on a little soccer display for the smiling Francis.

But even there, it was far from quiet.

His Holiness says, don’t just preach, listen, don’t scold, words won’t change, but the tone and temperament will, including the music.

Indeed, lines of patient (and not so) people had formed since the morning.

And naturally, other matters like care for the unborn and the poor flow from this care for the environment, and Pope Francis has already made this connection on his USA trip.

The Pontiff, whose reform-minded approach has won him a rousing global following even from non-believers, offered his vision of a better world on his latest stop of a United States tour that has brought thousands to the streets to welcome him.

And being the early-bird was apparently rough.

That’s something you’ll never hear on a normal SEPTA train, said JoAnne Higgins, 52 of Lansdale.

“The crowd had an intensity, but it was a peaceful intensity”, she said. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield in New York and Kathy Matheson and Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia. Well, that’s what happens when there was 185 porta-potties for so many people. In addition to thousands of officers on the ground, the NYPD will also have an extra set of “eyes in the sky”, helicopters to monitor the pope’s every move with incredible detail.

Then he was onto Madison Square Garden, where the faithful had been waiting for hours from Penn Station to Chelsea, where the mass was described by the Times as being “celebrated with the choreography of a concert befitting the hall before a rapt audience”.

“They are the foreigners, the children who go without schooling, those deprived of medical insurance, the homeless, the forgotten elderly”, Francis said. These people stand at the edge of our avenues and our streets in deafening anonymity.

The pope has received a rapturous reception in America, welcomed personally by President Barack Obama when he flew in Tuesday and by giant crowds in Washington and New York. Thank you for your visit… Our whole family’s here!

“Thanks for visiting us, your family”, Dolan said.

Pope Francis made a request, “Please I ask you”. They belted out the lyrics to, “Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace”, known as the Prayer of St. Francis.