VATICAN CITY, NOV 13, 2005 (VIS) - Following Mass, celebrated this morning in the Vatican Basilica by Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins C.M.F., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, during which Servants of God Charles de Foucauld, Maria Pia Mastena, and Maria Crocifissa Curcio were proclaimed as Blesseds, the Pope appeared at the window of his study overlooking St. Peter's Square to pray the Angelus with pilgrims gathered below.
Before the Marian prayer, the Pope pointed out that the new Blesseds "join the numerous ranks of Blesseds who were presented for veneration during the pontificate of John Paul II,... in keeping with the principle strongly emphasized during Vatican Council II: that all the baptized are called to the perfection of Christian life, priests, religious and laity, each according to their own charism and their specific vocation."
Benedict XVI went on to recall the importance given by Vatican Council II to the role of the laity, to whom it dedicated "an entire chapter, the fourth, of the Constitution 'Lumen gentium' ... defining their vocation and their mission, which are rooted in Baptism and Confirmation and oriented towards 'engaging in temporal affairs and ... ordering them according to the plan of God'."
The Conciliar Fathers, said the Pope, also approved a specific decree on the apostolate of the laity, 'Apostolicam actuositatem,' which highlights how "the 'success of the lay apostolate depends upon the laity's living union with Christ,' in other words it depends on a robust spirituality, nourished by active participation in the liturgy and expressed in the manner of the evangelical Beatitudes."
He went on: "For the laity, moreover, professional competence, a sense of family, public spirit and social virtues are also of great importance. Yet, if it is true that they are called individually to offer their personal witness - particularly valuable wherever the Church's freedom is impeded - the Council still insists on the importance of an organized apostolate, which is necessary in order to influence common attitudes, social conditions and public institutions. ... It was to the theme of the vocation and mission of the laity that the beloved Pope John Paul II dedicated the Synod of 1987, after which was published the Apostolic Exhortation 'Christifideles laici'."
The Holy Father concluded by recalling last Sunday's beatification in Vicenza, Italy, of Eurosia Fabris, the wife and mother who welcomed into her home children orphaned by the First World War, defining her as 'a model of Christian life in the lay state'."
ANG/LAITY/... VIS 20051114 (430)
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