‘Free blessings’: How a Jesuit priest chose to honor the late pope while running the Boston Marathon

Some who run the Boston Marathon try to finish as quickly as they can.

Boston’s Father John Predmore, who completed the race at dusk on Monday, had other things on his mind: “Free blessings.”

As many of them as the spectators and fellow runners needed, on a day of mixed emotions for local Catholics, and those visiting Boston from around the world, following the passing early Monday morning of Pope Francis.

Predmore, Boston College High School’s chaplain for Ignatian Ministries, ran his third Boston Marathon on Monday.

He did it with a heavy heart this time, he said, after waking up to the news of the death of the pontiff.

“I was so sad,” he said. “I was in one sense prepared for this because of the serious health issues that he had. But I still just felt like I lost a friend. That, really, the world lost a friend.”

Predmore runs with a purpose. Each year, he raises money for Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, a charity he felt compelled to support after hearing reports on the struggles faced by people gathering at Boston’s intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.

“‘Mass. and Cass’ was on the news every single day,” he said. “I was praying for them but there comes to a point where you say, ‘Praying is all well and good, but you have to act.’”

In all, he’s helped raise more than $100,000 for the cause, he said.

None of this comes easy.