Pope Francis has spoken movingly about those who lose a child and the need to "share their desperation" in a general audience sermon based on the Old Testament figure of Rachel.

The Pope said that while no words or gestures will ever be enough to comfort the pain experienced by those who have lost a child, God's response to tears is the promise of eternal life, the Catholic News Agency reported.

Drawing on the story of Rachel weeping for her deceased children in the Book of Jeremiah, Pope Francis said: "God, with his gentleness and his love, responds to the cry of Rachel with real words" through the Prophet Jeremiah.

"Cease your cries of weeping, hold back your tears! There is compensation for your labour," Jeremiah writes. "They shall return from the enemy's land. There is hope for your future...your children shall return to their own land."

Rachel "embodies the pain of all mothers of all time, and the tears of every human being who cries for irreparable losses", Pope Francis said.

The Pope added that Rachel's refusal to be consoled shows the "depth of her pain – a pain in proportion to the love".

He went on: "Every mother knows all this; and there are many, even today, mothers who weep, who are not resigned to the loss of a child, inconsolable before a death impossible to accept."

Francis said that it is necessary to share in the tears of someone who has lost their child, in order to begin to console them. "To speak of hope to those who are desperate, one needs to share their desperation," he said, adding that "only in this way can our words truly be capable of giving a little bit of hope."

At the end of the general audience in St. Peter's Square yesterday, Pope Francis asked those present to pray for the victims of a prison riot in Brazil on January 1 that left 56 people dead.

According to the BBC, the fight erupted between two rival gangs at the overcrowded prison in Manaus and lasted for around 17 hours.

"I invite you to pray for the deceased, for their families, for all inmates of that prison and for those who work there," said the Pope, who has repeatedly focused on the plight of prisoners throughout his pontificate.

"I renew my appeal so that penitential institutions would be places of rehabilitation and social reintegration, and that the living conditions of the inmates are worthy of human people."

In November last year, Pope Francis hosted a special audience for prisoners which came towards the end of his Jubilee Year of Mercy.

The Pope closed his sermon by asking those present to pray "for these prisoners, living and dead, and also for all prisoners in the world, so that prisons can be for rehabilitation, and not overcrowded, that they are places of reintegration".