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Accompanied by Harlequin-costumed Swiss Guards as the Sistine Chapel Choir — angelic voices — sang him to the ever-after and a single death knell tolled. Interred, as he’d instructed, in a plain wooden coffin, in a simple grave, in a niche tomb, beneath a slab of marble inscribed with only one word: Franciscus.

He lived humbly, even when elevated to the throne of the Roman Catholic Church, and he will continue with humility into eternity. A parish priest, as he always saw himself, amidst the people.

Before and after every foreign visit, Pope Francis prayed at Santa Maria Maggiore. On the very first day of his pontificate a dozen years ago, he’d stolen out of the Vatican to pray at Santa Maria Maggiore. It’s where he most poignantly lived and breathed his faith, in a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, often glimpsed by startled parishioners. Where he came in gratitude after being released from hospital on March 23.

Symbolically distant from the pageantry and centuries-old rituals of the pope’s open-air funeral at St. Peter’s Square two hours earlier. No pontiff has been interred outside the Vatican in more than a century. No pontiff has been buried at Santa Maria Maggiore since Clement IX in 1669.

Three years ago he’d been asked almost cheekily by the basilica’s archpriest if “by any chance’’ he’d given thought to being buried there, “given how often he came.’’

Francis replied somewhat regretfully that popes were buried at St. Peter’s. Yet a week later, as Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas recounted the other day, “he called me and said, ‘The Virgin Mary has told me to prepare my tomb. Find a place for it because I want to be buried in this basilica.’ ’’

Throughout his pontificate, this pope did things in a distinctive Francis way. And to the very end, too. With a streamlined funeral outside St. Peter’s — up to a quarter-million mourners filling the piazza and spilling up the grand avenue of Via della Conciliazione — that, by his decree, was kept to two hours, an hour less than duration of Pope John Paul II’s funeral ceremony. Nor was Francis carried through the square in an upright open coffin, a rather macabre tradition.

His coffin, carried out of St. Peter’s to stirring Gregorian chants, liturgical prayers and cheers from the crammed crowd on Saturday morning by 14 white-gloved pallbearers — household aides from his staff — had been sealed shut and remained on a bier, adorned with his pectoral crucifix, his coat of arms, and a large book of the Gospels, its pages riffling in a slight breeze.

On one side of the piazza were rows upon rows of cardinals in their scarlet vestments and zucchettos, the magenta of some 400 bishops, the white of 4,000 attending priests. On the other, official delegations and dignitaries including about 55 heads of state and royals — King Charles represented by Prince William — with U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump seated 10 chairs distant from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

They’d not been in each other’s presence since Trump rudely sent Zelenskyy packing from the White House after an astonishingly combative meeting, in front of the media, in February. White House officials did issue a statement after the funeral saying Trump and Zelenskyy had met for 15 minutes on the sidelines of the funeral beforehand, characterizing it as “very positive.’’ Though Trump, as recently as this past week, continues to blame Zelenskyy for the war that Russia started with its unprovoked invasion three years ago and thwarting his wildly unbalanced peace deal.

Trump stealing the headlines, as is his wont. But the impromptu face-to-face might also be viewed as the pope’s departing gift — a nudge towards resetting the relationship between these two leaders, a prod towards peace.

The world, of course, didn’t stand still for Francis’ funeral farewell. It unfolded against the grim backdrop of wars and strife and vast displacement of civilians, with Europe and America pushing back against the diaspora of desperate migrants. Those were the heaving masses that Francis put at the centre of his papacy: the poor, the marginalized, the victims, the meek rather than the mighty. A pope of the people.

Despite his tireless efforts, his outreach to constituencies ignored and villainized by the Church, Francis hasn’t left the planet in a better place than he found it.

The essence of the Argentine-born Francis who died from a stroke last Monday at age 88 was distilled in the homily — more a eulogy — delivered by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old dean of the College of Congregants, ordained in 1956, who presided over the requiem mass.

“Rich in human warmth and deeply sensitive to today’s challenges, Pope Francis truly shared the anxieties, sufferings and hopes of this time,’’ said Re.

The language was spiritual and high-minded but the message cleaved to Francis’ most urgent, plain-spoken missives, calling for an end to conflict, environmental care for God’s creation — Earth — and inclusive kindness, though already Francis’ critics on both ends of the spectrum, traditionalists to progressives, have emerged, bleating sour notes into the symphony of his life. Because he didn’t go far enough or because he went too far.

Amidst the grandeur, the fundamental morality of Francis rang through. “ ‘Build bridges not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” said Re. “His gestures and exhortations in favour of refugees and displaced persons are countless. His insistence on working on behalf of the poor was constant.’’

War, continued Re channelling his long-time friend, “always leaves the world worse than it was before. It is always a painful and tragic defeat for everyone.’’

Francis, said Re, remained a shepherd who “touched minds and hearts’’ of so many, whether Catholic or not, endearing himself to the public with his spontaneous gestures, his humble grace, his enduring sense of duty even when enfeebled by illness and age — he appeared on the St. Peter’s balcony for Easter Sunday blessing — and his palpable warmth. His Church was open to everyone — that is Francis’ epitaph.

After the solemn mass, hundreds of priests dispersed throughout the square to serve the Eucharist to the faithful, barriers in the piazza turned into altar railings.

The homily closed on a tender note, invoking the familiar words with which Pope Francis always ended his audiences and meetings: “Do not forget to pray for me.’’

“Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault,’’ Cardinal Re intoned in the sacred penitential act. Human fault, common to us all. Though it’s difficult to itemize any Francis faults.

After the service, the coffin — coins and medals minted during Francis’ pontificate tucked inside, along with a deed summarizing his life and papacy — was carried back into St. Peter’s, cardinals aligned on either side along the nave. The same cardinals who, in a few weeks’ time, will gather anew for the conclave which will elect Francis’ successor, No. 267.

A short time later, the popemobile — converted into an open hearse — left the Vatican from the Perugino Gate, a side entrance close to the Santa Marta guest house where Francis had chosen to live rather than the ornate Apostolic Palace, for the slow motorcade to Santa Maria Maggiore 5.5 kilometres away and the private interment. Tens of thousands more had lined the route, throwing flowers, shouting “Viva il Papa’’ and “Ciao, Francesco.’’

Arrivederci papa. From Buenos Aires to the Vatican to the welcoming gates of heaven.