Maria, ster van de evangelisatie

Virgin Most Holy, Mother of the Incarnate Word and our Mother,venerated in the Shrine of Sheshan under the title "Help of Christians", the entire Church in China looks to you with devout affection. We come before you today to implore your protection. Look upon the People of God and, with a mother’s care, guide them along the paths of truth and love, so that they may always be a leaven of harmonious coexistence among all citizens.

When you obediently said "yes" in the house of Nazareth, you allowed God’s eternal Son to take flesh in your virginal womb and thus to begin in history the work of our redemption. You willingly and generously cooperated in that work, allowing the sword of pain to pierce your soul, until the supreme hour of the Cross, when you kept watch on Calvary, standing beside your Son, who died that we might live.

From that moment, you became, in a new way, the Mother of all those who receive your Son Jesus in faith and choose to follow in his footsteps by taking up his Cross. Mother of hope, in the darkness of Holy Saturday you journeyed with unfailing trust towards the dawn of Easter. Grant that your children may discern at all times, even those that are darkest, the signs of God’s loving presence.

Our Lady of Sheshan, sustain all those in China, who, amid their daily trials, continue to believe, to hope, to love. May they never be afraid to speak of Jesus to the world, and of the world to Jesus. In the statue overlooking the Shrine you lift your Son on high, offering him to the world with open arms in a gesture of love. Help Catholics always to be credible witnesses to this love, ever clinging to the rock of Peter on which the Church is built. Mother of China and all Asia, pray for us, now and for ever.  Amen!

During his Angelus on Tuesday, Pope Benedict said “the Feast of All Saints is a good time to lift our gaze from the realities of the world… to the enormity of God, who encompasses all eternity and holiness. “ 

He said holiness is the vocation of all the baptized, and all the people of God are called to be saints.

The Pope then turned his thoughts to Wednesday’s commemoration of All Souls.

Pope Benedict XVI received the bishops of Angola and Sao Tomé on Saturday, who are here in Rome for their ad limina visits. In greeting the bishops, the Holy Father recalled his March, 2009 visit to Luanda, during which he said he was able to celebrate Jesus Christ in the midst of a people who never tire of seeking to love and serve with generosity and joy. Pope Benedict also used the occasion to explain that his recent decision to proclaim the Year of Faith from October 2012 to November 2013, was so that the whole Church might demonstrate to all a more beautiful and credible face, that the face of the Lord might show through the Church more clearly.

In the nineteenth century, the Catholic Church reacted to the secularist offensive in Europe with a spectacular missionary expansion on the other continents. Benedict XVI wants the miracle to be repeated today. His next voyage: to Africa

New evangelisation was at the heart of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Sunday before the recitation of the Angelus, his last before a visit to Germany. Speaking to the many people who had gathered in the courtyard of the Papal Summer Residence at Castelgandolfo, the Holy Father said that “Today we live in an epoch of new evangelisation. Vast horizons are opening to the Gospel, while traditionally Christian regions are called to rediscover once again the beauty of the faith”.

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.

Jill Bevilacqua and Seàn-Patrick Lovett bring us readings and reflections to mark the 21st Sunday of the Year in Ordinary Time. 

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Gospel Mt 16:13-20

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and
he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 
Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 
Jesus said to him in reply,
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. 
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. 
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” 
Then he strictly ordered his disciples
to tell no one that he was the Christ.

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 appealed for the victims of piracy today, saying he hopes all those taken on the high seas will receive humane and respectful treatment, and praying that the families of those being held remain strong in the faith, and not lose the hope that they will see their loved ones again soon. The Pope’s appeal was just one of the ways in which the Holy Father marked this Sunday’s World Maritime Day, organized by the Apostleship of the Sea each year to draw attention to the spiritual, moral and material challenges facing seafarers and their families.

Pope Benedict XVI told members of the one year-old Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation Monday that their mission is to proclaim the Good News to contemporary man, who is often “distracted and indifferent". At the same time, they must support the faithful in the "difficult relationship with modernity:" Being Christian “is not a kind of clothing to be worn privately or on special occasions, but it is something living and all-encompassing, capable of assimilating all that is good in modern times."