May 7, Friday, Fifth Week of Easter
Second from right: Canonization rites for St. Rosa and four others in October 2006.
ST. ROSA VENERINI (b Viterbo 1656, d Rome 1728), Virgin, Founder of the Maestre Pie Venerini
Viterbo's second Santa Rosa was born more than four centuries after the first one, the mystic who died at age 17. Rosa Venerini always wanted to be a nun and did enter a Dominican convent at age 20, but the death of her well-to-do physician father forced her to go back home to take care of her ailing mother and two siblings. With a sodality of friends who gathered in her house daily to pray the rosary, she was inspired to start a free school for poor girls in 1685. It was so successful that the Bishop of nearby Montefalcone asked her to start one in his diocese. From there on, she went to other places in Italy to start other schools. In Rome, it took her a few years to get going, but Pope Clement XI had heard of her good works, and one day, visited while she was giving a class. She eventually died in the Rome house of what would be recognized after her death as the order of the Maestre Pie Venerini (Pious Teachers of Venerini). At the time of her death, there were 40 Venerini schools in Italy. The order was very active in the United States during the great waves of Italian immigration in the 19th century, and today, it has missions in African and Asia. Mother Rosa was beatified in 1952 and canonized by Benedict XVI in October 2006.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/today.shtml
OR today.
Papal stories in this issue: The audiences for the President of Switzerland, Doris Lauthert, and the Emir of Kuwait. Other Page 1 stories: Greek PM calls on Parliament to pass austerity plan to keep Greece from falling off the brink; the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council support a plan for a nuclear-free Middle East proposed at the current conference on nuclear non-proliferation; off the coast of Louisiana, BP prepares to cap the massive oil leak resulting from an oil rig explosion on April 26, with a giant iron-and-concrete dome to be placed at 1500 meters depth that is expected to keep at least 85% of the leak under control. In the inside pages, there is an extensive interview with Mons. Andre Leonard, Primate of Belgium and Archbishop of Brussels, on the state of the Church in his country.
THE POPE'S DAY
The Holy Father met today with
- H.E. Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia, with his wife and delegation
- Bishops of Belgium on ad limina visit (Group 2), meeting separately with the Bishop of Ghent and
the Apostolic Administrator of Bruges (interim replacement for the Bishop who resigned two weeks ago
after admitting to sexual misconduct with a minor)
- Newly-sworn members of the Swiss Guard, with their families
- Mons. Valentino Di Cerbo, recently consecrated Bishop of Alife-Caiazzo (Italy), with his family members
MOSCOW PATRIARCH OFFERS A CONCERT
FOR BENEDICT XVI ON MAY 20
A news conference in the Vatican today presented the program for the 'Days of Russian Culture and Spirituality'
in Rome on May 19-20, with the presence of Archbishop Hilarion, foreign minister of the Moscow Patriarchate,
who will host a concert on May 20 offered to the Holy Father by Patriarch Kirill I, with the Moscow Symphony
Orchestra and other Russian musicians performing at Aula Paolo VI.