BENEDICT XVI ENTRUSTS TO THE VIRGIN HIS TRIP TO BRAZIL

VATICAN CITY, MAY 6, 2007 (VIS) - At midday today, the Holy Father appeared at the window of his study in the Vatican Apostolic Palace to pray the Regina Coeli with the thousands of people filling St. Peter's Square below.

  Before the Marian prayer, the Pope recalled how the month of May "is for many Christian communities the Marian month par excellence. As such it has, over the course of the centuries, become one of the forms of devotion most dear to people and has always been adopted by pastors as an opportunity for preaching, catechesis and community prayer."

  Benedict XVI indicated how following Vatican Council II "Marian devotion underwent a profound renewal. And the month of May, which partly coincides with Easter time, is an appropriate moment to present the figure of Mary as the Mother who accompanied the community of disciples gathered in joint prayer while they awaited the Holy Spirit. This month, then, can be an occasion to return to the faith of the early Church and, together with Mary, to understand that today too our mission is to announce and bear witness with courage and joy to Christ, crucified and risen, the hope of humanity.

  "To the Holy Virgin, Mother of the Church," the Pope added, "I wish to entrust the apostolic trip I will make to Brazil from May 9 to 14. Like my venerated predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II, I will preside at the opening of a General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean," the fifth such meeting "which will take place next Sunday at the great national shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, in the city of that name."

  This, said the Pope, "is my first pastoral visit to Latin America and I am preparing myself spiritually to meet the ... subcontinent where almost half the world's Catholics live, many of them young. For this reason it has been called 'the continent of hope:' a hope that touches not only the Church, but all America and the word entire."

  Pope Benedict called upon the faithful to pray to Mary Most Holy "for this apostolic pilgrimage and, in particular, for the Fifth General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean, so that all Christians of those regions may feel themselves as disciples and missionaries of Christ, Way, Truth and Life."

  He concluded: "There are many different challenges facing us at the present moment, that is why it is important for Christians to be formed to become a 'ferment' of goodness and a 'light' of sanctity in our world."
ANG/VIRGIN: BRAZIL TRIP/...                    VIS 20070507 (450)