Maria, ster van de evangelisatie

It was in a packed St Peter’s Basilica on Sunday that Pope Benedict XVI declared that the year 2012 to 2013 was to be a”Year of Faith”. The Holy Father made the announcement during his homily at a mass for the New Evangelisation. The Eucharistic celebration marked the conclusion of a meeting organised by Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation, which the Pope addressed on Saturday.

Speaking about his decision to invoke this “Year of Faith” Pope Benedict said it was "to give new impetus to the mission of the whole Church to lead men out of the desert in which they often find themselves, to the place of life, of friendship with Christ".

VATICAN CITY, 13 SEP 2011 (VIS) - Given below are excerpts taken from the article "A woman's intuition" by Lucetta Scaraffia, published recently by "L'Osservatore Romano" to coincide with the Pope's visit to Ancona for the closure of the twenty-fifth Italian National Eucharistic Congress.

“We must give ourselves much exercise both in fraternal correction, which requires a great deal of humility and simplicity of heart, and in prayer, so that what we offer up to God in Heaven might be the prayer of a community truly united in Christ.” These were some of the words Pope Benedict XVI spoke to the faithful gathered in the courtyard of the Papal Summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, for the Sunday Angelus. Reflecting on the Sunday Gospel readings, which focus on fraternal charity in the life of the community, the Holy Father recalled how the brotherly love also involves a "sense of mutual responsibility," which includes calling a brother who has fallen into sin back to the right path - first personally and then, gradually, at the community level. 

The Feast of the Assumption is celebrated by Christians of East and West, and for the Catholic Church, the dogma of the Assumption was proclaimed in 1950. Pope Benedict XVI called these things to mind in his remarks to the faithful ahead of the angelus prayer at noon on Monday, the Feast of the Assumption, telling the faithful that in Mary we see the goal towards which all people are making their way, who know how to bind their lives to Jesus’ own, who know how to follow Him as Mary did. “This feast,” he said, “speaks therefore of our future: it tells us that we too will be with Jesus in the joy of God and invites us to have courage, to believe that the power of the Resurrection of Christ can work in us as well, and make us men and women who every day try to live as resurrected, carrying the light of goodness into the darkness of evil in the world.”

Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday celebrated Mass marking the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, patron saints of the city of Rome. During the Eucharistic celebration, the Pope also conferred the Pallium on 41 new Metropolitan archbishops, from countries all over the world, who have been appointed over the past year.