ROME - The Vatican says Pope Francis celebrated Mass, worked and dined with aides as his recovery from intestinal surgery continued with “satisfactory” results.

Francis is up walking in the papal apartment on the 10th floor of Rome's Gemelli Polyclinic, from where on Sunday he is expected to deliver his weekly noontime prayer Sunday.

Francis was admitted to the hospital on July 4 for a severe narrowing of his large intestine.

Surgeons removed half of his colon.

In a daily update Saturday, the Vatican said Francis' latest blood tests were “satisfactory.”

A spokesman says that after receiving care from doctors and nurses, Francis was thinking of those who “with care and compassion choose the face of suffering.”