BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Thursday, May 17, Sixth Week of Easter
ASCENSION THURSDAY

From left: The Ascension - by Andrei Rublev, 1408; Dosso Dossi, 1490; Perugino, 1496; Garofalo, 1520; and a modern Macedonian icon; the structure is the Ascension edicule - a Church/Mosque on Mt. Olivet in Jerusalem where the Ascension was believed to take place, with what pilgrims believe to be a footprint of Christ. Strangely, the Ascension has not been a popular subject of art in the Western world. nor does the feast itself receive the same importance in the Roman Catholic Church as it has in the Orthodox Churches.
The Feast of the Ascension of Christ, which the Acts tell us took place 40 days after Easter, was always celebrated by the Church on a Thursday in keeping with Tradition, until the post-Vatican-II liturgical reform gave local Churches the option to celebrate it on the Sunday following Ascension Thursday.

Saint of the day:

SAN PASCUAL BAILON (Spain, 1540-1592)
Franciscan brother, Mystic, 'Seraph of the Eucharist'
One of the constellation of saints that Spain produced during the Counter-Reformation, St. Pascual, who was given his
name because he was born on Pentecost, considered as the 'Pasch of the Holy Spirit', was a shepherd until he was 24 when
he became a Franciscan friar. Before that, he was known to be a passionate devotee of the Blessed Sacrament, living a life
of penance, attending as many Masses as he could and kneeling in the fields whenever he heard the church bells ring out to
signal the Consecration of the host at Mass. As a child, he had a vision of Jesus actually present in the host. As a friar,
he took on the multiple roles of porter, cook, gardener and official beggar familiar from the lives of so many Franciscan
saints down to Padre Pio - during which he became known not only for his attentions to the poor but for his spiritual advice
and a reputation as a mystic. As a friar, he spent all his free hours in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, to whom he wrote
prayers and poems. The appellative 'bailon' (dancer) comes from a story that a fellow friar once saw him dancing before
the image of Mary, saying "I don't have any qualities to offer you but I can dance for you like we peasants do". Although
uneducated, his discourses on the Eucharist were so powerful that his superiors sent him to France to preach about the
Eucharist against the Calvinists. Soon after he died, his tomb at the royal chapel in Villareal near Valencia soon became
the object of pilgrimage, and many miracles were attributed to him. He was canonized in 1690. In 1897, Leo XIII, calling
him the 'Seraph of the Eucharist' also proclaimed him patron of eucharistic congresses and societies. His tomb was
desecrated and his relics burned by anti-clerical leftists during the Spanish Civil War.
Readings for today's Mass:
usccb.org/bible/readings/051712.cfm


No events announced for the Holy Father today.

The Vatican published the text of the Pope's remarks yesterday afternoon after watching a new TV film
MARIA DI NAZARET.


OR today.

The OR today mixes up three stories in its main headline. which has a supertitle and a subtitle:
The supertitle: At the General Audience, the Pope calls for support for the family through jobs and making them open to life.
The main title: 'Prayer makes us free'
[A sub-theme of the catechesis, not related to the supertitle, which referred to a [secondary message during the GA]
The subtitle: He calls on German Catholics for a new missionary start in obedience and trust
[Which had nothing to do with the GA at all - it's a separate story altogether]

Image: A 17th-century Syrian icon of the Ascension.
Anyway, the papal pictures shown were taken at the GA - two are generic, while the third one on the back page shows the Pope receiving an illustrated Genesis from the Bible presented by an Israeli artist. Other Page 1 items: An essay on the Ascension in the Byzantine tradition; Greeks rush to withdraw their money from banks as the country is posised with one foot outside the eurozone; and a rare picture of the Iguazu falls on the border between Brazil and Argentina, showing one of the world's mightiest waterfalls reduced to a virtual trickle these days because of many months of the worst drought in Brazil's recorded history. Four million people are in a state of emergency because of the drought.

In the inside pages, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the new French President Francois Hollande meet for the first time in Berlin after Hollande is sworn in (lightning hit his plane on the way and he had to turn back to Paris and take a second plane); and the European Court of Human Rights makes a landmark decision upholding religious freedom by recognizing the right of a Spanish bishop to decline to renew the teaching contract of a priest who had married and published a book condemning priestly celibacy; the court recognized the right of the bishop to determine who is qualified to teach in a Catholic school.