See preceding page for earlier entries posted today, 8/4/10, including main post on today's GA and accompanying bonanza of photographs.
Surprising coverage in La Repubblica online for the GA today, with pictures even! Maybe because nothing much is happening in the usual news circuits, and a big event like this occurring at the peak of summer is both noteworthy and newsworthy.
60,000 young ministrants
acclaim Benedict XVI
Translated from
August 4, 2010
VATICAN CITY - Some 60,OOO altar servers of both sexes from 17 European countries - 44,00 from Germany alone - greeted the arrival of Benedict XVI Wednesday morning at St. Peter's Square with uncontainable enthusiasm.
The resumption of the Pope's General Audiences after a holiday pause last month coincided with the second day of the altar servers' pilgrimage to Rome this year under the coordination of the Coetus Internationalis Ministrantium (CIM) based in Basel, Switzerland.
Arriving by helicopter from the papal summer residence o Castel Gandolfo, the Pope toured the various sectors of the vast crowd in an open Popemobile to great acclaim.
The overall attendance between the ministrants and the regular GA crowd was aabout 85,000, according to Fr. Federico Lombardi. They spilled over from St. Peter's Square into the adjoining Piazza Pio XII.
Papa Ratzinger wore the red saturno against the summer sun and appeared all smiles and in good form.
Before he arrived, the young people passed the time singing religious hymns in pop and rock arrangements.
When he mounted to the platform on the steps of St. Peter's, he was greeted by CIM president Mons. Martin Gaechter, auxiliary bishop of Basel. Gaechter presented the Pope with the white kerchief symbolizing the ministrants. The Pope wore the kerchief around his neck for teh catechesis and the blessing.
The audience today ended a three-week interruption corresponding to the three-week vacation that the Pope takes annually.
The Vatican underscored that the presence of so many adolescents and young people after a period of media attacks on the Church regarding the handling of pedophile priests demonstrated great confidence in papa Ratzinger's Church on the part of Catholic families in Germany and the rest of Europe.
Because of the page change midway through the posting day, I am posting the translation of the Holy Father's catechesis here as well. Except for the opening paragraph, he delivered the catechesis in German because majority of the ministrants are German-speaking (including the Austrians and Swiss):
THE HOLY FATHER'S CATECHESIS
Dear brothers and sisters,
I wish to manifest my joy at being among you today in this Piazza, where you have gathered festively for this General Audience, with very significant presence of the great pilgrimage of European ministrants to Rome.
Dear boys and girls and young people, dear German-speaking pilgrims, welcome to Rome! I greet you all from the heart. And with you, I greet the Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, who is named after your patron. You invited him to be here, and he is happy to be here among the ministrants of Europe.
I greet my dear brothers in the Episcopate and priesthood, and the deacons who chose to take part in this audience.
And I thank from the heart the auxiliary Bishop of Basel, Mons. Martin Gaechter, president of the Coetus Internationalis Ministrantium, for his words of greeting, for the great gift of the statue of St. Tarcisius, and for the foulard he has given me.
I also thank him, in your name for the great work he has been doing among you, along with his co-workers and all those who have made this joyful meeting possible. I also thank the Swiss sponsors and those who worked in various ways to realize the statue of St. Tarcisius.
There are so many of you! From the helicopter flying over St. Peter's Square, I coudl see all the colors and the joy that animate this Piazza. You have not only created an atmosphere of celebration in the Piazza, but you have also made my heart even happier! Thank you!
The statue of St. Tarcisio has come to us after a long pilgrimage. In September 2008, it was presented first in Switzerland to an audience of 8,000 ministrants - I am sure some fo you were present. From Switzerland, it went on to Luxembourg and so on, to Hungary.
Today we welcome it joyously, glad to be able to know better this figure from the early centuries of the Church. The statue, as Mons. Gaechter said, will then be erected near the Catacombs of St. Callistus, where St. Tarcisius is buried.
The hope I express for everyone is that the Catacombs of St. Callistus and this statue may become a reference point for ministrants and all those who wish to follow Jesus more closely through the priestly, religious and missionary life.
Everyone can look at this courageous and strong boy, and renew the commitment of friendship with the Lord himself, in order to learn how to live with him always, following the path that he shows us with ths Word and the testimony of so many saints and martyrs, to whom, through Baptism, we have become brothers and sisters.
Who was St. Tarcisius? We have little information. We are in the first centuries of the Church's history - more precisely in the third century. We are told he was a boy who often came to the Catacombs of St. Callistuz here in Rome and was very faithful to his Christian commitments.
He loved the Eucharist very much, and from various elements, we conclude that presumably, he was an acolyte, that is, a ministrant. In those years, the Emperor Valerian persecuted Christians very severely, and they were forced to gather secretly in private homes, or sometimes, in the Catacombs, to listen to the word of God, and to pray and celebrate Holy Mass.
The custom of bringing the Eucharist to prisoners and to the sick became increasingly more dangerous. One day, when the priest asked, as he usually did, for someone among those present who was ready to bring the Eucharist that day to the prisoners, the young Tarcisius got up and said, "Send me!" The boy seemed too young for such a demanding task. But he said, "My age will be the best refuge for the Eucharist".
The priest, convinced, entrusted the precious Bread to him, saying, "Tarcisius, remember that a celestial treasure has been entrusted to your care. Avoid the crowded streets and do not forget that precious things must not be thrown to the dogs nor gems to swine. Will you guard the Sascred Mysteries with faithfulness and safety?"
"I will die," Tarcisius responded resolutely, "rather than yield".
On his way, however, he met some friends who asked him to join them. When he refused, the friends, who were pagan, became suspicious and more insistent. They noticed that he seemed to be holding something close to his chest that he seemed to be protective of. They tried to take this away from him but in vain. They fought him more furiously, especially upon learning that he was a Christian. They kicked at him and threw stones, but he did not yield.
Dying, he was brought back to the catacombs by a Praetorian officer called Quadratus, who was a secret Christian. Tarcisius was dead on arrival, but close to his heart, he still had the fabric in which the Eucharist had been wrapped. And so he was buried in the Catacombs.
Pope Damasus later ordered an inscription for his tomb which states that he died in 257. The Roman Martyrology records the date as August 15, and it also contains the account of a beautiful oral tradition, according to which the Eucharist was not found in his clothes nor anywhere on the body. It was believed that the consecrated hosts, defended with his life by the boy martyr, had become flesh of his flesh, thus forming with his body, one single immaculate Host offered to God.
Dear ministrants, the witness of St. Tarcisius and this beautiful tradition teach us the profound love and great veneration that we must have for the Eucharist: It is a precious good, a treasure whose vlaue cannot be measured. It is the Bread of life, It is Jesus hismelf who becomes food for us, support and strength for our journey every day, and the open way to eternal life. It is the greatest gift that Jesus has left us.
I address those of you who are present, and through you, all the ministrants of the world: Generously serve Jesus who is present in the Eucharist. It is an important task that allows you to be particularly close to the Lord and to grow in true and profound friendship with him.
Jealously guard this friendsip in your ehart as St. Tarcisius did, ready to commit yourselves, to fight and to give your life so that Jesus may reach all men.
You must communicate to your contemporaries the gift of this friendship, with joy, with enthusiasm, without fear, so that they can feel that you know this Mystery which is true and which you love!
Everytime that you are near the altar, you are fortunate to assist at this great gesture of love from God, who continues to want to give himself to each of us, to be close in order to help us, to give us strength to live well.
At the Consecration, as you know, that small piece of bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the wine becomes his Blood. You are fortunate to be able to experience from up close this inexpressible mystery!
Carry out your task as ministrants with love, devotion and faithfulness. Do not enter the Church for Mass superficially, but prepare yourself interiorly for the Holy Mass!
In helping your priests in service at the altar, you contribute to make Jesus closer in a way that people can feel it and be much more aware that he is here. And you collaborate so that he may be more present in this world, in everyday life, in the Church and everywhere.
Dear friends, you give Jesus your hands, your thoughts, your time. He will not fail to reward you, giving you true joy and making you feel a happiness that is truly full.
St. Tarcisius showed us that love can lead us to give our own life for authentic good, for the true good, for the Lord.
Martyrdom will probably not be asked of us, but Jesus does ask for our faithfulness in the little things, he asks for our inner contemoplation, our interior participation, our faith and the effort to keep this treasure present in our everyday life.
He asks us for faithfulness in our daily tasks, as a witness to his love, attending Church frequently out of interior conviction and for the joy of his presence. In this way, we can make our contemporaries know that Jesus lives.
In this task, may we be helped by the intercession of St. Jean Marie Vianney, whose liturgical feast we observe today, by this humble parish priest of France who changed his small community and gave the world a new light.
May the examples of Saints Tarcisius and Jean Marie Vianney urge us daily to love Jesus and to fulfill his Will as did the Virgin Mary, who was faithful to Her Son to the very end.
Once again, I thank all of you. May God bless you and I wish you a good trip back to your countries.
After the catechesis and his pluringual greetings, he made a special appeal:
My thoughts go to the populations who have been struck, at this time, by serious natural calamities which have caused loss of human life, injuries and damages, leaving numerous persons homeless - in particular, by the vast fires in the Russian Fderation and the devastating floods in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
I pray to the Lord for the victims and I am spiritually close to those who are tried by these adversities. For them, I ask God to relieve their suffering and sustain them in their difficulties. I also wish that they will not lack for solidarity from everyone.
The 8/5/10 issue of L'Osservatore Romano devotes quite a few items to the gathering of ministrants in Rome. An editorial takes note of La Repubblica's coverage...
The acolytes celebrate
with the Pope
Editorial
by Giovanni Maria Vian
Translated from the 8/5/10 issue of
In these days which constitute the heart of summer, Rome has been merrily invaded by some 60,000 young people - largely German - who belong to the
Coetus Internationalis Ministrantium and who came to Rome for a pilgrimage that culminated in a gathering around Benedict XVI.
Smiling faces and summer wear, accented by colorful scarves, sporty berets and caps of all kinds. An event that was very surprising to many, and yet most important without a doubt, to which the newspaper
La Repubblica - which often pays no attention to routine Church events and is not generally benevolent towards the Church - decided to dovote three entire pages.
But truly, these days have been an extraordinary Catholic celebration.
Who are these ministrants anyway? They are normal children and young people who are full of joie de vivre. Once they were called 'altar boys' [
chierichetti in Italian], a term which is less precise than its current form taken from the beautiful Latin verb
ministrare (to serve, in this case, to serve at liturgy above all) but sounds more familiar and less bureaucratic.
Even in the feminine form,
chierichette, an Italian neologism which sounds a bit funny but nonetheless generally said with sympathy, to indicate the introduction in recent decades of girls and young women, especially in German-speaking countries, to a role once exclusively reserved for males.
But the role of 'ministrant' now has wider dimensions because, as a neutral noun that does not distinguish gender or age, it indicates and educates about being close to Christ. This is an education that begins first in the family, and continues in the church and in the Church, forming and preparing young people for a truly Christian life.
Not just through their actual service but through listening to the Word made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, and in the adoration and contemplation of his real presence in the Eucharist.
The Pope never tires of demonstrating, in his words and by the example of the liturgies he celebrates, the beauty and centrality of liturgy, whose renewal according to Vatican II must be considered in a vital continuity with Tradition.
The beauty and the commitment of this international gathering of ministrants at the height of summer obviously demonstrate - after a long and chilly mediatic season that has sought to indiscriminately obscure the beauty and radicalness of Catholic priesthood - the importance of what the Church has done throughout history and continues to do, every day and everywhere in the world, for the formation of the younger generations.
They are boys and girls who are educated in and educate others in being close to Jesus, of friendship with the Lord whom the Oriental liturgies call 'the friend of men'. A friendship that thousands of young people expressed joyously at St. Peter's Square yesterday, waving their caps and kerchiefs for his Vicar on earth.
A white kerchief for the Pope
Translated from the 8/5/10 issue of
The Pope wore the white kerchief given to him as a symbol of the young ministrants' Rome pilgrimage during the entire catechesis and blessing yesterday.
"I, too, was an altar boy," he told his young 'colleagues' after he was given the kerchief by Mons. Martin Gaechter, president of Coetus Internationalis Ministrantium.
The kerchief for the Pope was woven by disabled workers in the Caritas workshop in Munich, along with the fabric for 45,000 vanilla-colored ones for the Germans, green for the Italians, yellow for the Austrians, black for the Swiss, etc., to make up the 'rainbow' of 17 nations who brightened up St. Peter's Square and the streets of Rome this week.
Kerchiefs were also presented to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State, and all other bishops who were at the General Audience yesterday. Including Mons. Robert Zollitsch, Archbishop of Freiburg and president of the German bishops' conference.
"Today, everyone can see that in Germany, there is a young Church that is very vibrant," he told us. "To see so many young people so enthusiastic and aware gives us confidence and new spiritual strength to face the challenges we have".
Before the catechesis, Mons. Gaechter expressed the esteem and affection of the pilgrims for the Pope.
"Here in Rome," he said, "we have learned to appreciate better our communion with the faith. Today, we have brought you the statue of St. Tarcisius, patron saint of ministrants for his willingness to serve and his love for the Eucharist which he testified to by giving his own life".
At the end of the audience, the Pope blssed the statue and spoke to a representative group of pilgrims.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/08/2010 17:10]