Nov. 11, Thursday, 32nd Week in Ordinary Time
ST. MARTIN DE TOURS (born Hungary 316?-d France 397)
Bishop and Confessor, Patron of France
Son of a Hungarian soldier in the Roman Empire, he grew up in the area that is now Pavia, Italy,
and joined the cavalry at 15. At 18, he had his famous dream of giving half his cloak to a beggar
who turned up later as Christ wearing it. He was baptized, and two years later, he left the army
to be a 'soldier for Christ'. In Tours, France, he became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers. He went
into exile and back with Hilary, establishing the first French monastery on their return. He was
active in preaching against the various heresies of his time. He was named bishop by popular
acclaim on Hilary's death, and continued to fight paganism and heresies. In the 7th century,
his cult was taken up by Clovis, who founded what became the Merovingian dynasty. His shrine
became a popular stop on the pilgrimage route to the Shrine of St. James in Compostela, Spain,
and he has remained one of the most popular of European saints. Martin Luther, who was baptized
on his feast day, was named for him.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/111110.shtml
OR today.
The main headline is on the Holy Father's letter to the President of South Korea, as host and President of the G20 summit which begins in Seoul today [See text in the post above]. The issue carries the texts and photos from his General Audience yesterday, in which he reported on his weekend visit to Spain; and after the release today of his long-awaited Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation entitled Verbum Domini following the 2008 General Assembly on the Word of God, the OR announces it will be carrying the full text as a free supplement to the issue tomorrow. Page 1 international news: Terrorist bombs planted in various Christian houses in Baghdad take 6 lives, including a 4-year-old, and wounds 30 others; China and the USA face each other at G20 summit over monetary policy.
THE POPE'S DAY
The Holy Father met today with
- 12 Brazilian bishops from Southern Sector-II who are on ad limina visit. Individual meetings.
- Mons. Gerhard Mueller, Bishop of Regensburg.
- Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses.
Address in Italian.
At a news conference today, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, led a presentation
of Benedict XVI's Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation,
Verbum Domini, summarizing pastoral recommendations
based on the General Assembly of the Bishops Synod in October 2008 on The Word of God.
The Vatican has released the texts of the Holy Father's letters to
- The President of the Republic of Korea, on the occasion of the G20 summit this week; and
- President Ahmadinejad of Iran, which was hand delivered to him by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president
of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog, who is in Tehran with a delegation for a periodic
meeting with their Iranian counterparts on the Catholic-Muslim dialog.
- Cardinal Raffaele Farina, Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church, on the re-opening of
the Vatican Library and Archives this month after three years of renovation.
Verbum Domini is bound to be one of the most significant documents of this Pontificate... I'm gasping for breath from the embarrassment of riches coming to us steadily from the Magisterium of Benedict XVI, who has made an art form of his pastoral and spiritual messages, whether it is a book, an encyclical, a homily, a post-Synodal exhortation, a simple letter, whatever! Thank you, Holy Father, and AD MULTOS ANNOS!
Il Foglio today has a seven-page story intended as a sort of 'preview' to LIGHT OF THE WORLD elicited in a long interview with Peter Seewald, who is carefully guarded about not laying out any specifics... The only real 'novelty' that he lets through is on the Regensburg lecture, about which the Pope admits he never thought it would be considered other than what he meant it to be - an academic lecture, not a political discourse.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/11/2010 17:09]