HOLY FATHER TAKES HIS LEAVE OF CASTELGANDOLFO

VATICAN CITY, 30 SEP 2010 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon Benedict XVI bid farewell to staff who work at the Pontifical Villas in Castelgandolfo, thanking them for their prayers and their efforts on his behalf during the period he had spent there.

  "Dear friends", he said, "continue to offer daily witness of your faith, especially by humbly listening to the Word of God. ... All Christians are called to accept and to live, day after day with simplicity and joy, the Word of truth which the Lord communicated to us. ... It is vital that each Christian should live in contact and personal dialogue with the Word of God, given to us in Sacred Scripture, reading it not as a word of the past, but as a living Word addressed to us today".

  The Holy Father assured the staff of the Pontifical Villas of his "constant recollection in my prayers, that each of you may increasingly and more profoundly come to know and assimilate the Word of God, stimulus and source of Christian life in all situations and for all people, The Most Holy Virgin is a model of such obedient attention; learn from her".

  The Pope is due to return to the Vatican this evening.

AC/                                    VIS 20100930 (220)

BENEDICT XVI'S PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR OCTOBER

VATICAN CITY, 30 SEP 2010 (VIS) - Pope Benedict's general prayer intention for October is: "That Catholic universities may more and more be places where, in the light of the Gospel, it is possible to experience the harmonious unity existing between faith and reason".

  His mission intention is: "That World Mission Day may afford an occasion for understanding that the task of proclaiming Christ is an absolutely necessary service to which the Church is called for the benefit of humanity".
BXVI-PRAYER INTENTIONS/                    VIS 20100930 (90)

AUDIENCES

VATICAN CITY, 30 SEP 2010 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in separate audiences:

 - Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.

 - Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

 - Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Sant'Egidio Community, accompanied by Bishop Vincenzo Paglia of Terni-Narni-Ameila.

 - Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv of the Latins, Ukraine.
AP/                                    VIS 20100930 (70)