Saturday, January 15
Center illustration: St. Anthony Abbot burying St Paul the Hermit.
ST. PAUL THE HERMIT (Paul of Thebes)(Egypt, 228-345)
Considered to be the first Christian hermit, Paul was in his 20s when he escaped the Christian
persecution under Emperor Dacian by fleeing to a cave in the desert outside Thebes. He found
the solitude and opportunity for prayer so right for him that he stayed for the next 90 years.
He subsisted on a nearby spring and palm tree, though it was said that when he was 43, a raven
started bringing him half a loaf of bread every day. When he was 112, he received a visit from
St. Anthony Abbot (Anthony the Great), already renowned as a pioneer of ascetic monasticism
and who had himself lived as a desert anchorite. It is said they spent a day and a night talking
to each other. Paul lived another year and died at age 113. St. Jerome wrote a biography which
has become the standard source about him.
[GReadings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/011611.shtml
OR today.
The issue commemorates the decree of beatification for John Paul II signed by Benedict XVI yesterday, acknowledging the miracle brought about through the late Pope's intercession in June 2005;and thEannouncement that the beatification rite will take place in Rome on May 1, Divine Mercy Sunday. Other Page 1 news: The Pope's audience with local administrators of Lazio region, and the province and city of Rome; Tunisia's Prssident, despite promises of reform, fails to quell street uprisings protesting food shorages and unemployment (the news today is that he was forced to flee Tunisia, the first Arab president to be ousted by a popular revolt); and Beijing again vows to make its undervalued yuan more 'flexible' for the world market.
PAPAL EVENTS TODAY
The Holy Father met today with
- Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S., Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (weekly meeting)
0 Cardinal Agustín García-Gasco Vicente, emeritus Archbishop of Valencia (Spain)
- Ecumenical delegation from Finalnd, on the offcasion of the Feast of St. Henrik (traditional visit)
- Officials, agents and personnel of the Italian Inspectorate of Public Security serving at the Vatican
(traditional New Year audience). Address in Italian.
FIRST PERSONAL ORDINARIATE
FOR RETURNING ANGLICANS
HAS BEEN FORMALLY ERECTED
The Vatican announced the formal erection today of the first Personal Ordinariate under
Anglicanorum coetibus.
It will be called the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, covering the territory of England and Wales, and its first
Ordinary will be the Rev. Keith Newton (born 1952), the Anglican Bishop of Richborough from 2000-2010. Rev. Newton
and his wife were among the Anglicans received into the Catholic Church at a ceremony in London's Westminster
Cathedral on New Year's Day. The new Ordinariate has been placed under the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/01/2011 13:31]