Thursday, June 6, 2013, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Woodcut shows Norbert receiving the Rule from St Augustine; statue is in the Founders' Gallery at St. Peter's Basilica.
ST. NORBERT (Germany, ca 1080-1134)
Benedictine, Missionary, Founder of the Norbertine Order, Bishop, Patron of Bohemia
Born near Cologne, he rose to be almoner in the court of Emperor Henry V during which he lived an indulgent life. A near-death experience led him
to penance, and at age 30, he joined the Benedictines. Intent on reforming the clergy and fighting heresies, he obtained papal permission to be an
itinerant preacher, at which time, miracles were already attributed to him. At the Council of Reims in 1119, Pope Callixtus II asked him to start
an order, which he did in Piemontre, France, (thus called the Premonstratarians, now more commonly, Norbertines) adapting the Augustinian rules.
The order spread rapidly throughout Europe. He was named Bishop of Magdeburg, where he went to work with a will at reforming the clergy. In this,
he worked with Saints Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of Grenoble. He died shortly after he was elevated to archbishop. He was buried in a Magdeburg
abbey but when the city became a center of Lutheranism during the Reformation, his remains were transferred to a church outside Prague where he is
venerated as a patron of Bohemia.
Readings for today's Mass:
usccb.org/bible/readings/060612.cfm
AT THE VATICAN TODAY
Pope Francis met with
-H.E. Mohammad Taher Rabbani, Ambassador from the Islamic Republic of Iran, who presented his credentials:
- Executive Board members of the Confederation of Latin American Religious
- Mons. Beniamino Stella, President of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy (training college for Vatican diplomats)
- Students, professors and staff of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. Address in Italian. English translation here:
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/06/06/pope_francis_to_future_diplomats:_no_to_careerism!/en1-698966
One year ago...
At the General Audience, Benedict XVI gave an account of his three-day pastoral visit to Milan where he also presided over the concluding events of the VII World Meeting of Families... The Vatican released the text of Benedict VXI's letter dated May 23, 2012, congratulating Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on the Diamond Jubilee of her coronation.
TWO YEARS AGO TODAY....
Benedict XVI ended a three-day apostolic visit to Cyprus, which produced one of the most unusual events during the Pope's travels. The papal processional towards the Church where he was to celebrate Mass took place, overlooked by armed UN forces, on a street at the edge of the UN-designated buffer zone between the Turkish and Greek sectors of Nicosia, the capital. That, in itself, was unusual, even if the convent where he stayed during the visit was just around the corner from the Church. But something even more unusual happened at the start of that walk...
An 89-year-old imam, leader of a Sufi (mystic Muslims) sect, who lives on the Turkish side, waited a few hours to see the Pope as he walked out of the convent to say Mass for the Catholic community of Nicosia at the nearby cathedral, so he could greet the Pope and present him with a gift (a decorative plaque with an Arabic inscription). Their fraternal embrace was touching.
Today is also the 69th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied landings in Normandy that spelled the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe... Very notably, John Paul II sent German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to represent him at the 60th anniversary of D-Day in 2004.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/06/2013 01:40]