HAVANA (AFP) ― Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned to Cuba on Easter Sunday for a third round of radiation therapy to combat cancer after tearfully praying to God this week to let him live.

President Raul Castro warmly received Chavez on his arrival here before dawn at Havana’s international airport, the state newspaper Juventud Rebelde said.

The Venezuelan leader, who has twice undergone surgery in Cuba to remove cancerous tumors, flew to Havana after telling his cabinet he was leaving to “continue battling for life.”

“Heading for Havana with faith in Resurrected Christ,” Chavez tweeted from the airport in Caracas early Sunday. “We’ll keep living and keep winning!”

Chavez spent time with family members in his native state of Barinas in the west of the country between courses of radiation treatment.

Chavez, 57, who is facing a tough re-election fight this year, is expected to undergo five weeks of radiation treatment in Havana, but has planned to return home for brief periods during that time.

He underwent the first two rounds of treatment in Havana, where he underwent surgery last month to take out a malignant tumor in the same area where another tumor was removed in June 2011.

Officials in Caracas have never specified the type of cancer the president has, but insist it has not spread to other organs.

After months of brave faces and reassuring words, Chavez made an emotional prayer at an Easter mass last week that put his health and political future in the spotlight.

Chavez attended Holy Thursday mass in Barinas wearing a rosary around his neck. With his voice breaking, he asked God: “Please don’t take me yet.

“Give me your crown of thorns, Christ, I will bleed,” the president continued. “Give me your cross, 100 crosses ― and I will carry them for you. But give me life, because I still have things to do for my people and my country.”

The Venezuelan leader, who attended mass with his parents, children and other family members, explained later that emotions caused by the proximity of his loved ones had overwhelmed him and he could not hold back tears.

“It was a spontaneous, sentimental thing,” Chavez said on Friday.

“My father and mother stood next to me. And suddenly we took each other’s hands. My mom gave me her hand with such tenderness, and Dad gave me his ... And because of this tears rolled down my face.”

His prior stay in Havana lasted five days, allowing him to head off criticism that he had left Venezuela without permission from the National Assembly, which must authorize a president’s absence if it exceeds that length of time.

Henrique Capriles, a 39-year-old state governor who was chosen to represent a unified opposition in primaries earlier this year, is running against Chavez in October presidential elections.