BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Tuesday, August 24, 21st Week in Ordinary Time

Fifth from right: Bartholomew holding his sikn, from Michelangelo's Last Judgment.
ST. BARTHOLOMEW (b Judea, d Armenia, 1st cent), Apostle and Martyr
Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis on Oct. 4, 2006,
www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20061004...
to this apostle about whom little is known for certain. He is mentioned in all four Gospels, always associated with Philip, and once in the Acts, but as Bartholomew, he was never the center of any Gospel episode. It has become widely accepted however that he was likely the man called Nathanael who became a disciple after an encounter when Jesus told him, "Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree", a reference known only to Nathanael, who then professed "Rabbi, you are the Son of God, the King of Israel!" In John's Gospel, Nathanael is quoted to have told Philip "Can anything good come from Nazareth", after Philip tells him he has found "the man of whom Moses and the prophets wrote" in Jesus of Nazareth. The early historian Eusebius claimed that after the Ascension, Bartholomew brought the Gospel eastward up to India. A stronger tradition holds that he and Jude Thaddeus evangelized Armenia (they are the patron saints of teh Armenian Apostolic Church), where Bartholomew converted the king, and was then flayed alive and crucified head downward by the king's brother. A famous monastery in Armenia was built in the 13th century on what was said to be the site of Bartholomew's martyrdom. Eventually, his remains were brought to Rome, where he is venerated in the church named for him on Tiberina island on the Tiber river. The legend of his martyrdom, particularly the aspect of having been skinned alive, was a favorite subject of artists in the past. Michelangelo depicts him in the Last Judgment, holding out his skin, on which the artist painted his own face.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/082410.shtml


OR for 8/23-8/24/10:

At the Sunday Angelus, Benedict XVI invokes Mary Queen of Peace for an end to the 'absurd logic of violence' and calls for
'A world of brothers to construct the civilization of love'
Says acceptance of diversity is the basis of universal brotherhood
Other Page 1 items: A new report says the region using the euro as currency needs at least 15 million jobs to bring the economy back to the levels before the 2008 economic crisis; another 200,000 rendered homeless by new floods in Pakistan during a 24-hour period, swelling the millions previously displaced by monsoon flooding that has left one-fifth of the country under water; in China, hundreds of thousands also displaced by continuing monsoon rains. In the inside pages, the Holy Father's message to Comunione e Liberazione's 31st Meeting for Friendship among Peoples in Rimini, which opened Sunday; and a story on the Sunday workshop in Rimini at which the first volume (on liturgy) of the Italian edition of Joseph Ratzinger's Complete Works was presented.


The Pope's message to the Rimini Meeting was also published today as a Press Office bulletin.
 

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