 21/01/2013 17:30 |
|
| | | OFFLINE | | Post: 26.135
Post: 8.627 | Registrato il: 28/08/2005
Registrato il: 20/01/2009 | Administratore | Utente Master | |
|
Monday, January 21, Second Week in Ordinary Time
Memorial of St. Agnes
Third photo from left, St Agnes by El Greco.
ST. AGNES [Agnese] OF ROME (291-304), Virgin and Martyr
Born to a Christian family of the Roman nobility in the time of Diocletian, she is said
to have refused, at age 12-13, to marry the son of a Roman Prefect, who punished her
by having her dragged through the streets to a brothel. Legend has it that her hair
grew to cover her nakedness, and that those who tried to rape her were struck blind.
Finally, she was led to be burned at the stake, but the wood would not burn. She died
either by being beheaded or stabbed in the throat. She was buried in the catacomb that
bears her name. She is depicted with a lamb because her name resembles Agnus, the
Latin word for lamb, but it really comes from the Greek word that means 'chaste'. Every
year on her feast day, two lambs are brought from the Trappist abbey of Tre Fontane in
Rome to the Vatican, to be blessed by the Pope. Their wool is used to weave the palliums
that will be conferred by the Pope on the new metropolitan bishops named during the year.
The teenage saint is one of only seven women saints named in the Canon of the Mass.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/012113.cfm
AT THE VATICAN TODAY
The Holy Father met with
- Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of Genoa, and President of the Italian bishops' conference (CEI).
- Six bishops from the Italian region of Calabria, on ad-limina visit.
Afterwards, at 12:15 p.m., the Holy Father blessed the lambs traditionally presented to him
at the Urban VIII chapel of the Apostolic Palace on the Feast of St. Agnes from the sisters
at the Basilica of St. Agnes in Rome.
- One of the Italian bishops who met with the Pope today. Mons. Luigi Catanzaro of Lamexia Terme (visited by the Holy Father in 2011, along with nearby Serra San Bruno), told the Italian service of Vatican Radio that Benedict XVI had encouraged the bishops of Calabria (southern Italy, to the east of Sicily) in their efforts to combat local organized crime and all Mafia-like phenomena. ('ndrangheta is the local term for these goons to differentiate them from the Sicilian Mafioai.)
Mons. Cantafaro also said the Holy Father has conitnuing deep concerns about worsening youth unemployment, and that he told them that the renewal of faith during the Year of Faith must go hand in hand with a rebirth in all ecgtors of scoiety.
(It is noteworthy that don Pino Puglisi, a Palermo priest murered by the Mafia in 1993, will be beatified in recognition of his martyrdom on May 25.)
AND NO! oObviously, my attempts to fix the overall 'centering' of each post have turned out to be useless - everything has reverted back to abnormal![Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/01/2013 22:20] |
| |
|
| |
|
|