ALL OUR LOVE AND PRAYERS
FOR OUR BELOVED HOLY FATHER,
ROCK OF THE CHURCH,
ON HIS 83RD BIRTHDAY.
AD MULTOS ANNOS, SANCTE PATER!
I did not have time to prepare anything new, so I put together a few strips I mounted about two years ago -
there is some duplication of photos because I did the 'early Ratzinger' strips on two separate occasions.
Friday, April 16
ST. MARIE BERNARDE (BERNADETTE) SOUBIROUS (France, 1844-1879), Visionary and Virgin
One of the most popular of modern saints, Bernadette was a virtuous and sickly peasant girl of 14 who had not even made her first Communion when 'a lady appeared to her on February 11, 1848, in a rocky grotto beside the river Gave in the Pyrenean village of Lourdes. She saw her 17 times more. The Lady identified herself on one of the earlier apparitions, 'I am the Immaculate Conception', a term which meant nothing to the unlettered girl. [Pope Pius IX would not declare the dogma of the Immaculate Conception until 1858). The Marian apparitions at Lourdes attracted worldwide attention. After initial skepticism, the Church gave credence to her story, and she soon was hounded for her fame. She entered a convent in Nevers where she worked humbly despite her chronic sickliness and professed her vows before she died at age 35. Meanwhile, Lourdes had grown into the most visited shrine on earth. Bernadette was canonized in 1935. When her body was exhumed before her beatification, it was found to be incorrupt and is venerated at the convent in Nevers .
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/041610.shtml
OR today.
Benedict XVI to the Pontifical Biblical Commission:
'The Eucharist is the center and source of the Petrine ministry'
Illustration: Detail from Jan Breughel the Elder's Great Mass of Flowers, Vienna, Kuensthistorisches Museum.
The OR greets the Holy Father on his birthday; and the Holy Father urges the bishops of Brazil to promote the Mass as the center of Christian life. In the inside pages, an essay by Mons. Robert Zollitsch, president of the German bishops' conference on Benedict XVI's spiritual Pontificate'. Page 1 international stories: an article by Ireland's foreign minister on his country's path to economic recovery; the BRIC nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China - are poised to press the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for more equitable world financial regulations (they represent 26% of the world's territory, 42% of its population and 15% of gross production); and three unattributed bomb explosions kill 26 in Yangon as Myanmar celebrates the Buddhist New Year.
THE POPE'S DAY
The Holy Father met today with
- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops (weekly meeting)
- Bishops of Brazil (Group 3, North Sector II) on ad limina visit
- Members of the Papal Foundation.
The Holy Father has named Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals, to represent him
at the funeral services for President Lev Kaczynski and his wife, who died in an airplane crash this week.
The Vatican has released the official program for the Holy Father's apostolic visit to Turin on May 2,
where he will venerate the Holy Shroud now on public exposition.
The Pope undertakes his first trip abroad this year tomorrow, to visit Malta from Apirl 17-18.
Sign at last Wednesday's GA reads: 'PAPA - you are the Blessed One!'
PLEASE REMEMBER -
WE MUST FLOOD OUR DEAREST PAPINO
WITH OUR BEST WISHES FOR HIS BIRTHDAY
AND HIS FIRST 'LUSTRUM' AS POPE:
mailto:benedictxvi@vatican.va
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/04/2010 14:51]