Friday, March 25, Second Week in Lent
FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION
The Annunciation by Fra Angelico, 1437; Botticelli, 1489; Raphael, 1501
'FIAT VOLUNTAS TUA!...ET VERBUM CARO FACTUS EST'
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/032511.shtml
OR today.
Page 1 features an 11th-century Russian icon (center) in which the mystery of the Incarnation is presented in the Burning Bush of the Old Testament. A front-page essay on the Annunciation in the Byzantine tradition. in which the Annunciation/Incarnation is described as 'the Lord fell like rain over the Virgin'. From the OR online post, one would conclude that there is no story about the Pope in this issue when, in fact, there is a summary of Mons. Gerhard Mueller's presentation of JON-2 at the Diocese of Rome's 'Dialogues in the Cathedral Thursday night, reproduced on Lella's blog from the paper edition. Page 1 international news: 'No-fly zone' coalition nations in discussions to turn over military command of anti-Qaddhafi operations to NATO (the agreement was reached last night, hours after this issue went to press); increasing uncertainty whether Japan will be able to control what appears to be a worsening situation at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant; the Portuguese prime minister resigns after Parliament rejects the debt crisis resolution negotiated with the European Union. In the inside pages, German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany will stop further nuclear-plant plans; a terrorist bomb near a Jerusalem bus stop kills one woman and wounds dozens in the first such attack in three years since Israel put up the wall between the city and adjoining Palestine territory; and a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor, who died in Los Angeles yesterday at age 79. [MSM will probably report this signed article as 'the Vatican' endorsing the late star's lifestyle which included 8 marriages to 7 men and serious drug dependency issues, especially since the writer glosses over Taylor's commitment to fighting AIDS which she started long before any other celebrity did.]
AT THE VATICAN TODAY
Before his audiences today, the Holy Father attended the first Lenten sermon of Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of
the Pontifical Household, given annually to the Roman Curia.
Then, the Holy Father met with
- Four more Indian bishops (Group 2) of the Siro-Malankarese rite on ad limina visit, including the Apostolic Exarch for
Siro-Malankarese rite Catholics in the United States. After individual meetings, he addressed all the bishops (English).
- Participants in the annual course for priest-confessors under the auspices of the Apostolic Penitentiary.Address in Italian.
In the afternoon, he will meet with
- Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (weekly meeting).
The Vatican announced the following:
- The Holy Father this year entrusted the preparation of the meditations and prayers for the Via Crucis at the Colosseum on Good Friday to Mother Maria Rita Piccione, president of the Federation of Augustinian Sisters, and a resident of the convent of Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome. Another Augustinian nun, Sr. Elena Manganelli of the convent of Lecceto in Siena, executed the designs for the libretto.
NB: Cindy Wooden's CNS story about this adds the ff data - Mother Piccione is the third woman chosen to write the meditations. John Paul II named Mother Anna Maria Canopi of the Mater Ecclesiae Abbey in Isola San Guilio, Italy, in 1993; and Sister Minke de Vries, a nun in the Protestant community of Grandchamp, Switzerland, in 1995.
- On March 28, His Beatitude Chrysostomos II, Archbishop of New Justinian and all Cyprus, and Primate of the Cyprus Orthodox Church, will have an audience with the Holy Father. The Vatican also released the program highlights of the Primate's three-day visit to Rome. He first visited the Pope in 2007, and they met again in Cyprus in June 2009, during the Pope's apostolic visit.
Two important announcements regarding the Eastern churches:
- The Holy Father has granted the Ecclesiastical Coomunion, requested of him under the canon law governing the oriental Churches, by the newly-elected
Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, His Beatitude Bechara Boutros Rai, elected on March 15 by the Bishops' Synod of the Maronite Church to succeed Cardinal Sfeir, 90, who resigned the leadersihip position because of age.
Mons. Bechara Rai, O.N.B.V.M., born 1940, was ordained a Mariamite priest (Maronite Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary) in 1967, and obtained a doctorate in canon law and a licentiate in theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, after which he was director of studies for his order's ecclesiastical schools in Rome. The Patriarchal Synod elected him Patriarchal Vicar in 1986 and he was consecrated as the titular bishop of Cesarea di Filippo. In 1990, he was elected bishop of the new Eparchy of Jbeil (Byblos). Since then, he has participated in all the assemblies of the Bishops' Synod at the Vatican.
- Also in accordance with the canon law governing the Oriental Churches in communion with Rome, the Holy Father has expressed conformity to the election of
Mons. Sviatoslav Schevchuk on March 23 as the
Archbishop-Major of Kyiv-Halyč (Ukraine), successding Cardinal Lubomyv Husar who resigned because of ill health. He was elected by the Bishops' Synod of the Greek Catholic Church of the Ukraine.
Mons. Shevchuk (born 1970) has a doctorate in moral theology from the Pontifical Aquinas University in Rome, and was rector of the theological seminary in Lviv when Benedict XVI made him a bishop in 2009 to serve as Auxiliary bishop in the Eparchy of Santa Maria del Patrocinio in Buenos Aires. He became its apostolic administrator in 2010 when the episcopal seat was vacated.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 25/03/2011 19:20]