The Pope blesses
pallium lambs
Adapted from
January 21, 2013
Pope Benedict XVI marked the Feast of St. Agnes Monday with a centuries-old rite: the blessing of the lambs, from whose wool the pallium imposed by the Pope on metropolitan archbishops will be made.
Two small lambs, traditionally less than a year old, were carried to the Pope in flower-decorated baskets, by the Canons Regular of the Cathedral of St John Lateran.
Reared by religious sisters in the Saint Lawrence convent in Panisperna, Rome, these lambs and their 'flockmates' will soon be brought to the Saint Cecilia convent in Trastevere. There in another cdenturies-old custom, they will be shorn to supply the wool from which the religious sisters will weave the palliums for the Vatican.
The name Agnes derives from the word for “lamb” in Latin. St. Agnes was a martyr of the early 4th century, known for her consecrated virginity. She was killed when she was between 12-13, for refusing to worship pagan gods. She is buried in the basilica named for her, located on Rome’s Via Nomentana. To symbolize St. Agnes’s purity, one of the lambs wears a crown of white flowers, while the other wears a red floral wreath to recall her faithful witness even unto death.
The bishop's pallium is a white woollen stole, decorated with six black crosses, worn by metropolitan archbishops around their necks as a symbol of their authority and unity with the Pope, whose pallium alone has crosses in red. Once woven, the palliums are kept in an urn by the tomb of St Peter until the Holy Father presents them to newly-appointed metropolitan archbishops on June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/01/2013 16:39]