By Remo Casilli and Roberto Mignucci

ROME (Reuters) -Pope Francis did not deliver his Sunday blessing in public but his recovery from surgery was progressing normally and he has begun physical therapy to help his breathing, the Vatican said.

As previously announced, the 86-year-old pope did not say his Sunday traditional noon Angelus prayer in public and watched Mass on television, the statement said.

Doctors had recommended he avoid putting strain on his abdomen after a three-hour operation at Rome's Gemelli hospital to repair a hernia on Wednesday.

"What could be a better occasion than being able to support the Pope here at Gemelli?" said Giovanna Vitiello from Pompeii, who went there for medical tests and was praying under Francis' hospital window.

"I send him best wishes and a hug because without him we would feel like lost sheep."

Francis will stay in hospital for at least all of this week. Audiences have been cancelled until June 18.

The pope has two trips planned for this summer, to Portugal on Aug. 2-6 and Mongolia Aug. 31-Sept. 4.

Sunday's Vatican statement said the pope showed no signs of fever and had normal blood levels.

He also received communion, it said.

Francis managed to recite the Angelus during his 2021 stay in the same hospital, also for abdominal surgery, when he had part of his colon removed to address a painful bowel condition called diverticulitis.

The pope, who has been affected by a string of health problems, earlier this year said the condition had returned and was one cause of his increasing weight.

(Additional reporting and writing by Federico Maccioni; Editing by Alex Richardson and Andrew Cawthorne)