As tens of thousands of people waited in St. Peter’s Square for smoke to billow from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel signaling whether or not a new pope was elected, people gathered for noon Mass at Holy Name Cathedral to pray for the cardinals in the conclave.

Auxiliary Bishop Jose Maldonado-Garcia celebrated the May 7 Mass and Father Louis Cameli offered the homily.

This is an obviously important moment for the church, Cameli said.

“But even more, as Cardinal [Giovanni Battista] Re said in Rome today in St. Peter’s where Mass was celebrated for the same intention for the conclave and the cardinals, he said it is for the church, but it is also for all of humanity,” Cameli said. “We know from our experience we’ve been blessed with popes in the last hundred years who have offered not only the church but the whole world a unique moral voice calling the world and all of humanity to peace in this troubled world calling all humanity to a sense of compassion and care for those who are on the margins, calling all humanity to take ownership for the care of the earth, our common home.”

The Gospel for the Mass that speaks about the apostles waiting in the Upper Room following Jesus’ death shows what the church needs in a pope, Cameli said.

“Our prayer is that the cardinals would be open to the work of the Holy Spirit as they make their decision and as they go forward – open to the Holy Spirit so that the result of their election is not simply based on their own ideas and their own personal aspirations, but that everything would move in accordance with God’s will for the church and the world,” he said.

Cameli’s words followed up on the homily heard by the 133 cardinal electors earlier that day in Rome as they listened as Cardinal Re, who headed the Vatican’s then-Congregation for Bishops and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America from 2000 to 2010, underlined the seriousness of the task before them and the qualities every pope — the successor of St. Peter — must embody.

“We are here to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit, to implore his light and strength,” he said, “so that the pope elected may be he whom the church and humanity need at this difficult and complex and tormented turning point in history.”

“To pray, by invoking the Holy Spirit, is the only right and proper attitude to take as the cardinal electors prepare to undertake an act of the highest human and ecclesial responsibility and to make a choice of exceptional importance,” he said.

“This is a human act for which every personal consideration must be set aside, keeping in mind and heart only the God of Jesus Christ and the good of the church and of humanity,” the cardinal warned.

Jesus gave his disciples a “new” commandment, “that you love one another as I have loved you,” he said; that kind of love is one so great and boundless that it includes laying down one’s life for one’s friends.

All of his Jesus’ disciples must always show his same “authentic love in their behavior and commit themselves to building a new civilization” of love, he said, because “love is the only force capable of changing the world.”

This kind of love can be surprising, he said, like when Jesus humbly washed the feet of the apostles, “without discrimination, and not excluding Judas, who would betray him.”

In fact, the fundamental quality of a shepherd “is love to the point of complete self-giving,” Cardinal Re said.

Catholic News Service contributed to this story.