More than a million faithful are expected to attend the Mass Pope Francis is set to celebrate in the Ecuadorean port city of Guayaquil on Monday, NBC 6 South Florida reported. The service will mark the key event of the pontiff's "relatively easy" first full day in the South American country.

The Argentinian-born Francis arrived in Ecuador on Sunday, and the trip -- which will also take him to Bolivia and Paraguay -- is his second visit to the region since becoming the leader of the world's more than 1 billion Catholics in 2013, the BBC detailed.

The papal Mass will be celebrated in Guayaquil's Samanes park, which had been filled with a quarter of a million people as early as 3:30 a.m. local time. The facility's gates are set to open at midday, and some 4,000 volunteer workers will oversee the massive convocation, Ecuador's La Hora noted.

On his arrival in the country's capital of Quito on Sunday, Francis noted he was excited to once again visit his native South America, CNN noted. The affection was mutual, as crowds hoping to catch a glimpse of the Popemobile lined the roads leading from Mariscal Sucre International Airport into the city.

"I begin my visit filled with excitement and hope for the days ahead," Francis noted at the arrival ceremony. "From the peak of Chimborazo to the Pacific coast; from the Amazon rain forest to the Galapagos Islands, may you never lose the ability to thank God for what he has done and is doing for you."

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's chief spokesman, had fielded questions on the flight from Rome from journalists who inquired as to why Francis was not using the opportunity to also visit his native Argentina.

"Well, there is time," Lombardi said, "and we know that he is always putting others before himself, before his family and in that sense he begins from the periphery, other people, and to show that he does not have preference or privileged, and he has to be attentive to everyone in the world."