Saturday, January 9
Left, St. Augustine's Abbey today, a World Heritage site along with Canterbury Cathedral.
ST. ADRIAN (HADRIAN) OF CANTERBURY (b North Africa ca. 635, d England 710)
Benedictine Abbot and Scholar
A Berber like St. Augustine, his family left Africa for Italy where he became a Benedictine
monk and abbot of a monastery near Naples. Pope St. Vitalian twice offered to make him
Archbishop of Canterbury but he declined. The second time, he recommended his friend
Theodore of Tarsus (who would become St. Theodore of Canterbury), then already 67.
The Pope agreed provided Adrian accompanied him to Canterbury, where Theodore made
him abbot of the abbey founded by St. Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th century. Adrian,
a gifted scholar, made the abbey one of the great centers of learning in his time. To this
day, the 'books of Theodore and Hadrian', including their commentaries on the Bible, are still
issued in modern editions as source material for Anglo-Saxon England. He died peacefully
in the abbey. The Normans completely rebuilt the Anglo-Saxon abbey, and during the work,
St. Adrian's remains were unearthed in 1091 and found to be incorrupt. His tomb became
an object of pilgrimage where many miracles were said to take place.
NB: I could only find one image online of St. Adrian.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/010910.shtml
OR today.
Illustration: Bernini's Baldachin in St. Peter's - sketch by sculptor Lello Scorzelli.
No papal stories on Page 1, but an editorial commentary linking to the Holy Father's Angelus message on the feast of the Epiphany that men today should not put their trust in seers or even economic forecasters, and in the inside pages, the Pope's prayer intentions for 2011, and his address to the Inspectorate for Vatican Security. Other Page 1 stories: Sudan's civil war continues five years since a truce agreement signed by the government and the Sudanese People's Liberation Army who last week killed 139 members of a hostile tribe in South Sudan and 5000 heads of cattle belonging to them; likewise, new civilian killings in Mogadishu, in Somalia's ongoing civil war; and President Obama's admission of a secular system failure that allowed a Nigerian suicide bomber to board a plane to the United States and attempt to blow up an airliner with 300 passengers over Detroit. Inside, there are three stories on Gian Lorenzo Bernini following discovery of documents showing his original contract to design the baldachin over St. Peter's tomb with its distinctive 'licorice-stick' columns. Bernini was commissioned by Pope Urban VIII, a Barberini, to renovate the central altar of St. Peter's.
THE POPE'S DAY
The Holy Father met today with
- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops
- Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, emeritus Arch-Priest of the Basilica of
St. Paul outside the Walls
- Cardinal William Wakefield Baum, emeritus Major Penitentiary
- Mons. Joseph Augustine Di Noia, O.P., Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and
the Discipline of Sacraments
- Superiors, students and alumni of the Pontifical North American College (seminary for Americans
in Rome), on the college's 150th anniversary. Address in English.
The Vatican released a brief communique on the latest Vatican-Israeli meeting towards implementation
of a 14-year-old treaty which has been the subject of bi-annual talks for just as long.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/01/2010 16:03]