Emeritus Pope celebrates
his 88th birthday:
He gets a tribute from Bavaria and
the Pope's Mass today was offered for him
April 16, 2015
Photos from L'Osservatore Romano - I am picking them up as they come online.
The Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, marked his 88th birthday on Thursday (April 16th) with a Bavarian-style celebration. He received birthday greetings from a group of Gebirgsschutzen (mountain protection units) from his native Bavaria, dressed in traditional costumes.
The Pope's older brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, 91, is in Rome for the occasion.
Since resigning as Pope in February 2013, Benedict XVI has lived a life of prayer and reclusion at the Mater Ecclesiae situated inside the Vatican Gardens.
Speaking in an interview with Vatican Radio, Monsignor Alfred Xuereb, the former second secretary of Benedict XVI, said affection for the Pope Emeritus has increased over the past two years. He paid tribute to Benedict XVI’s great humility and humanity as well as his deep intellect and his ability to transmit profound thoughts.
Monsignor Xuereb also confirmed that the Pope Emeritus enjoys a “great serenity,” and a clear realization that “he took the right step” (by resigning), describing that move as “an act of great generosity towards the Church.”
In a separate story, Vatican Radio reported:
Pope Francis on Thursday offered the Mass at Casa Santa Marta for his predecessor, the Pope Emeritus, on the occasion of Benedict XVI’s 88th birthday.
“I want to remind you that today is the birthday of Benedict XVI,” Pope Francis said at the liturgy. “I offered the Mass for him, and I invite you to pray for him, that the Lord might sustain him and grant him much joy and happiness.”...
[I will not post the rest of the RV story which is the usual incoherent mishmash purporting to be the papal homilette for the day.]
P.S. Actually, the Italian service of Vatican Radio has the full interview with Mons. Xuereb, as follows:
Mons. Xuereb's birthday wish
for the emeritus Pope:
That he may come to be truly known
by all for who he really is
April 16, 2015
It has been two years since Benedict XVI renounced the Petrine ministry and yet, on the day of his 88th birthday, many have sent birthday wishes to the emeritus Pope. A sign that the affection for Joseph Ratzinger has not faded even if now he lives in prayer 'hidden from the world'.
As a special tribute to the emeritus Pope, AlessandroGisotti interviewed Mons. Alfred Xuereb, now secretary-generla of the Secretariat for the Economy, who, from 2007 to the end of Benedict's Pontificate, served as his second secretary.
MONS XUEREB: The affection for Pope Benedict has grown even more. I see him much less than before, but I pray for him. Whenever I happen to see him in the Vatican Gardens [on his daily walks), he always greets me very gladly. Recently, I drove just a little past the entrance to Mater Ecclesiae to wait for him to pass by after he had finished praying the Rosary, so as not to disturb him. When he got to the gate, he asked the gendarme on duty who was in the car, then he called me to him.
With great affection he said, "Don Alfred, I didn't think that you have started to be afraid of me!" It's the affection he has for me, and for everyone.
Today is a special day, a day of joy. I remember a particular birthday of his, the first I spent since working with him - it it was in 2008, and it was celebrated in the White House, because this was during his visit to the United States - and everyone sang "Happy birthday" to him. I thought Benedict XVI was very very happy with the welcome he got. That was a beautiful memory, but so are all the other birthdays that I spent with him in the papal apartment.
From the anecdote you related, one gets a glimpse of Pope Benedict's present life - prayer but also that delicate, kind and profpund sense of humor that has always characterized Joseph Ratzinger...
Yes, he is as he has always been, ever affectionate. I see that he is well, in apparent good health, frail but not beaten down.
Those who have had the grace to meet him have seen in Pope Benedict's eyes a serenity that is truly striking, a serenity even in the face of the extraordinary decision he made to renounce the Papacy two years ago.
Without a doubt. A great serenity, coming from the conviction that he did the right thing. Yes, that's it - a great serenity knowing that he performed a great act of generosity towards the Church.
What would one wish for Pope Benedict today, or what would he ask of those who are listening to this interview?
I hear from many persons who tell me: "Our affection and our prayers for Benedict XVI continues to grow". My own wish is that the true figure of Pope Benedict may continue to be 'rediscovered' because I fear that he has not always been understood well and in some sectors, has even been misrepresented or distorted.
So my wish is that people may truly discover the beautiful humanity of this man, the contrast between his great humility and his immense capacity to think and to transmit profound thoughts to us.
Fr. Hunwicke remembers:
Our love for a great Pontiff
on this festival of a great Martyr
April 16, 2015
A day of great whooppee for all good men and women and true, a day marked for us by the birthday of our Holy Father the Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, the Pope of Unity to whom we in the Ordinariate owe so much; to whom the Whole State of Christ's Church Militant here on Earth owes so much.
The erudite Pope who was able to set the problematic decades since Vatican II into a conceptual framework which enabled us to make sense of the Divine purpose during those difficult years; the Pope who made clear that it is theologically impossible for a Catholic Rite to be abolished - and went on to legislate that, whatever any nay-sayer of whatever dignity might wish, any presbyter of the Latin Rite has an inalienable right to celebrate the Mass we associate with the name of his great predecessor, St Pius V.
How can any of us tuck into our lunches today without thinking of that gentle old pastor and wise scholar tucking into something Bavarian, in the company, one hopes, of his brother?
This day will always remind me of my unforgettable visit to Papa Stronsay last year; a break in my journey enabled my kind hosts to take me to visit the exquisite rose-coloured Romanesque Cathedral at Kirkwall in the Orkneys. At the Reformation, the relics of the martyred Earl Magnus were removed from their shrine but carefully preserved behind a stone in the transept arch; so his presence is still living in his own Church. Because, you see, today is the Feast of S Magnus the Martyr! I think of my dear friends on Papa Stronsay solemnly celebrating the Patronal Festival of the Orkneys in their wind-swept but immaculate chapel.
It doesn't end there. We in the Ordinariate owe our present laetitia in large measure to the work and witness of Fr Henry Joy Fynes Clinton, Rector of S Magnus the Martyr by London Bridge, Founder of the Catholic League, Apostle of Romanita within the Church of England; Confessor of the Faith; another devoted lover and upholder, against whatever Anglican episcopal persecutions, of the liturgy we used to call "the Western Rite". One of those intimately involved in the restoration of the Holy House of the Mother of God at Walsingham, to whom our Ordinariate is dedicated.
So it is surprisingly unsurprising that, upon this day of days, the Particular Calendar of the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham offers us this Nordic Saint to celebrate, enabling us
-
Caecubum depromere [an allusion from an ode by Horace, referring to drawing vintage wine from the cellar] in honour of a great Pontiff;
- to celebrate our fellowship with the Redemptorists on Papa Stronsay whose regularisation, like ours, is the fruit of that great Pontificate of Christian Unity, and who, like us, suffered in their journey into full canonical status;
- to remember with affection and prayer our own Anglican Fathers in the Faith who did not live to see the the new dawn of Anglicanorum coetibus.
From Father Z:
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/04/2015 20:28]