Happy birthday to him who has taught us with his own life never to place anyone or anything before Christ.
Happy birthday to him who has borne witness with his entire existence that humility is not a false
ostentatious modesty, but awareness of what one can or cannot do, and that everything we are able to do
is a gift of the Lord.
Happy birthday to him who told us, once more, with joy that God is love, that the beginning of being Christian
is an encounter with a Person, and that love should be the mark of our presence in the world.
Happy birthday to him who reminds us, with his silence, that in order to truly understand the Word, we must
enter into the silence of Jesus, the Word himself.
Happy birthday to him who even now, from his little hermitage in the Vatican, takes us by the hand and
accompanies us along the journey of life and faith.
Happy birthday to an extraordinary man, a unique man, a father, a teacher and a friend.
AD MULTOS ANNOS, BELOVED PAPA!
With my usual thanks to Scenron at LA VIGNA DEL SIGNORE for providing the illustration and the message as he does for every important Benedict XVI anniversary.
Not to forget that three days from now, we mark the 13th anniversary of Joseph Ratzinger's election as Pope, for which Scenron reminds us to make it
a day of prayer for and with Benedict XVI, as we join him with our prayers on his prayer times during the day.
And two video gems from Raffaella as a birthday treat for all of us who love Benedict XVI:
Gemma, Raffaella's indefatigable and invaluable videomeister, assembled the above from rare,
mostly previously unseen photos and videoclips from Joseph Ratzinger's years as a university professor.
Even better is a beautiful hourlong Italian documentary (unfortunately reproduced without credits nor a date, but probably shortly after his election as pope), which gives an overview of Joseph Ratzinger's life from his birth in Marktl-am-Inn to his election as pope.
www.dailymotion.com/video/x6hnbsv
It contains many photos and videoclips besides the ones we have become familiar with, and contains remembrances from persons like someone who was at school with him in his early years at grade school; someone who was with him in the prison camp where ex-German soldiers were rounded up by the Americans (the one who reveals that he asked him what he was writing even in prison, which was Greek verse in hexameters in which he mocked his captors and the Nazis); someone who, as an eight-year-old, took catechism lessons with him in his first assignment as a parish vicar in the Church of the Most Precious Blood in Munich; a student who remembers how popular Ratzinger's lectures were in Bonn that the university opened his courses even to non-theology students; a parishioner at Santa Maria Consolatrice in Rome when the new Prefect of the CDF was assigned the church in 1981 as his Roman parish; his neighbors in Pentling, Therese and Rupert Hofbauer; and his good friends Professor and Margaret Richardi, whose family life he shared. There's Alfred Lapple, the mentor who befriended him in his first year in seminary, who had introduced Joseph to the work of John Henry Newman; and Vittorio Messori and Peter Seewald. And occasional commentaries from the Cardinal himself on various phases of his life. What a beautiful treat on this birthday!
UPDATE
Georg Gänswein: “Benedict spent his birthday
with his brother and we prepared a surprise for him”
Relaxed and with his brother is how Benedict XVI celebrated his birthday. His secretary, Georg Gänswein, explained this during the Rome Reports presentation of a documentary on the pope emeritus.
MSGR. GEORG GÄNSWEIN
"He's celebrating now at home with his brother, who was with us also this morning. We will go pray the rosary and then the Swiss Guard's band has prepared a small surprise, very typical from Germany. They will play two or three songs and after a short speech the celebration will continue."
As for the pope emeritus's health, he assures that he is the same as a few weeks ago when he wrote a thank you note to an Italian media outlet. In it, he admitted his physical decline.
"His mind is very good, his physical strength has decreased a little, but he is in good spirits, he is present mentally, and today he is celebrating. The important thing is that he is present. Whether he is writing something important or not, I do not know, but he himself said that we should not expect anything academic."
Those closest to him know that Benedict misses his native Bavaria and that is why every year they try to bring a small piece of his country to the smallest state in the world.
And even a little video tribute
from Vatican News
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/04/2018 02:30]