BENEDICT XVI CELEBRATES HIS 82ND BIRTHDAY TODAY

VATICAN CITY, 16 APR 2009 (VIS) - The Holy Father will today celebrate his 82nd birthday in the Apostolic Palace of Castelgandolfo a few kilometres south of Rome where he is enjoying a brief period of rest following the ceremonies of Holy Week.

  Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. yesterday commented the circumstance by expressing the hope that the Holy Father "may long continue to carry out his ministry, ... helping the men and women of today to find God".

  "The focus of his concern", Fr. Lombardi continued his remarks, "is to bring mankind to God and God to mankind, through a great personal love for Christ. ... Despite the critical attitude it is necessary to adopt towards so many negative aspects of today's culture and mentality, in the final analysis the principle message [the Church] wishes to communicate is a message of love, a message for the good of mankind and of the human person; that is, their reconciliation with God and with all the other men and women who live on this earth".

  Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger, the name with which Benedict XVI was baptised, was born on 16 April 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Germany. From 1946 to 1951, the year in which he was ordained a priest and began to teach, he studied philosophy and theology at the University of Munich and at the higher school of philosophy and theology of Freising. In 1953 he obtained a doctorate in theology with a thesis entitled: "The People and House of God in St. Augustine's Doctrine of the Church." Four years later he qualified as a university teacher with a work on St. Bonaventure's theology of history.

  After a period of teaching dogma and fundamental theology at the higher school of philosophy and theology of Freising, he went on to teach in Bonn from 1959 to 1969, in Munster from 1963 to 1966, and in Tubinga from 1966 to 1969. In that year he was appointed professor of dogmatic theology and of the history of dogma at the University of Regensburg and vice president of the same university. In 1962, he made a noteworthy contribution to the work of Vatican Council II as theological consultant to Cardinal Joseph Frings, archbishop of Cologne.

  In 24 March 1977, Paul VI appointed him archbishop of Munich and Freising, making him a cardinal on 27 June 1977. In 1981 he was nominated by John Paul II as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Subsequently he also became president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and of the Pontifical International Theological Commission, and dean of the College of Cardinals.

  He was elected as Pope on 19 April 2005, the second day of the conclave.
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PLENARY ASSEMBLY OF THE PONTIFICAL BIBLICAL COMMISSION

VATICAN CITY, 16 APR 2009 (VIS) - The Pontifical Biblical Commission is due to celebrate its annual plenary meeting at the Vatican's "Domus Sanctae Marthae" from 20 to 24 April, under the presidency of Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Fr. Klemens Stock S.J., pro-secretary general of the commission, will oversee and direct the work of the assembly.

  This will be the first gathering of the Pontifical Biblical Commission since the partial renewal of its membership, in accordance with current norms. During the meeting attention will be given to a new study entitled "Inspiration and Truth of the Bible", the draft version of which has already been examined by the commission members.
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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 16 APR 2009 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

 - Appointed Archbishop Domenico Umberto D'Ambrosio of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, as metropolitan archbishop of Lecce (area 750, population 266,968, Catholics 265,568, priests 207, permanent deacons 38, religious 440), Italy. He succeeds Archbishop Cosmo Francesco Ruppi, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

 - Appointed Archbishop Braulio Rodriguez Plaza of Valladolid, Spain, as archbishop of Toledo (area 19,333, population 655,000, Catholics 634,914, priests 467, religious 169), Spain.

 - Gave his assent to the canonical election by the Synod of Bishops of the Greek-Catholic Ukrainian Church of Fr. Yosyf Milan M.S.U., pastor of the cathedral of the Resurrection of the Lord, as auxiliary of the archieparchy of Kyiv (Catholics 240,000, priests 43, permanent deacons 9, religious 37), Ukraine. The bishop-elect was born in Dobryany, Ukraine in 1957 and ordained a priest in 1984.
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HOLY THURSDAY: CHRISM MASS AND THE LORD'S SUPPER MASS

VATICAN CITY, 9 APR 2009 (VIS) - In the Vatican Basilica at 9.30 a.m. today, Holy Thursday, the Holy Father presided at the Chrism Mass, which is celebrated on this day in churches and cathedrals throughout the world. Cardinals, bishops and priests present in Rome concelebrated with the Pope. Following the homily, there was the renewal of priestly vows and the blessing of the oil used for catechumens, the sick and those being confirmed.

  In his homily the Pope commented upon the prayer of the Lord for His disciples and for "disciples of all time: ... Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, so that they also may be consecrated in truth".

  "In the Old Testament", the Holy Father explained, "the giving over of a person to God, his 'sanctification', is identified with priestly ordination. ... The priest is removed from worldly bonds and given over to God, and precisely in this way, starting with God, he must be available for others, for everyone".

  The word of God, he continued, is as the bath which purifies the disciples, "the creative power which transforms them into God". And he asked his listeners: "is that word truly the nourishment we live by, even more than bread and the things of this world? Do we really know that word? Do we love it? Are we deeply engaged with this word to the point that it really leaves a mark on our lives and shapes our thinking? Or is it rather the case that our thinking is constantly being shaped by all the things that others say and do?"

  Dwelling then on the phrase "sanctify them in the truth", the Pope explained how this means "make them one with me, Christ. Bind them to me. ... Our being priests is simply a new and radical way of being united to Christ. ... Being united to Christ calls for renunciation. It means not wanting to impose our own way and our own will, not desiring to become someone else, but abandoning ourselves to Him, however and wherever He wants to use us".

  "Celebrating the Eucharist means praying. We celebrate the Eucharist rightly if with our thoughts and our being we enter into the words which the Church sets before us", said Benedict XVI.

  "To be immersed in God's truth and thus in His holiness", he went on, "for us this also means to acknowledge that the truth makes demands, to stand up, in matters great and small, to the lie which in so many different ways is present in the world".

  "If we become one with Christ, we learn to recognise Him precisely in the suffering, in the poor, in the little ones of this world; then we become people who serve, who recognise our brothers and sisters in Him, and in them, we encounter Him".

  At 5.30 p.m. in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, Benedict XVI presided at the Mass of the Lord's Supper. During the celebration, imitating the gesture of the Lord towards the Apostles, the Pope washed the feet of twelve priests. At the presentation of the gifts, he was given alms collected to support the Catholic community in Gaza.

  Commenting in his homily on the narrative of the institution of the Eucharist, the Pope insisted that the Eucharist is first and foremost a prayer, "and only in the course of the prayer is the priestly act of consecration accomplished, which becomes transformation, transubstantiation of our gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ".

  In that narrative "the praying Church gazes upon the hands and eyes of the Lord", said Pope Benedict, recalling then how "at our priestly ordination, our hands were anointed, so that they could become hands of blessing. Let us pray to the Lord at this hour that our hands will serve more and more to bring salvation, to bring blessing, to make His goodness present!"

  When the Canon uses the words: "Looking up to heaven, to You His Almighty Father", the Pope explained, "the Lord teaches us to raise our eyes, and especially our hearts. He teaches us to fix our gaze upwards, detaching it from the things of this world, to direct ourselves in prayer towards God and thus to raise ourselves".

  "Breaking the bread is the act of the father of the family who looks after his children and gives them what they need for life. ... Thus, in the act itself, the intimate nature of the Eucharist is already indicated: it is 'agape', it is love made corporeal. In the word 'agape', the meanings of Eucharist and love intertwine".

  The wine chalice the Lord gives to His disciples is "the glorious chalice - the chalice of great joy, of the true feast, for which we all long - the chalice filled with the wine of His love".

  What happened at the Last Supper, "and what has been renewed ever since whenever we celebrate the Eucharist", is that "God, the living God, establishes a communion of peace with us, or to put it more strongly, He creates 'consanguinity' between Himself and us. ... The blood of Jesus is His love, in which divine life and human life have become one.

  "Let us pray to the Lord", the Pope added in conclusion, "that we may come to understand ever more deeply the greatness of this mystery. Let us pray that in our innermost selves its transforming power will increase, so that we truly acquire consanguinity with Jesus, so that we are filled with His peace and grow in communion with one another".
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GOOD FRIDAY: LORD'S PASSION, WAY OF THE CROSS AT COLOSSEUM

VATICAN CITY, 10 APR 2009 (VIS) - In the Vatican Basilica at 5 p.m. today, Good Friday, the Pope presided at the celebration of the Lord's Passion. Following the reading of the Passion, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa O.F.M. Cap., preacher of the Pontifical Household, pronounced his traditional Good Friday homily. The ceremony continued with the universal prayer, veneration of the Cross and Holy Communion.

  At 9.15 p.m. the Holy Father went to the Colosseum where he led the "Via Crucis" or Way of the Cross. The meditations this year were prepared by Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil S.D.B. of Guwahati, India.

  Benedict XVI oversaw the ceremony from the Palatine Hill while Cardinal Agostino Vallini, vicar general for the diocese of Rome, carried the cross over the first and last stations. Over the other stations it was carried by a young disabled person assisted by a doctor from the Sovereign Military Order of Malta; a family from Rome; a young sick person accompanied by a stretcher-bearer and a nun; an Asian girl and two Indian nuns; two young people from Burkina Faso, and two Franciscan friars from the Custody of the Holy Land.

  At the end of the ceremony, the Holy Father addressed some remarks to those present.

  Quoting the words of the centurion as Jesus breathed His last, "truly this man was the Son of God", the Pope indicated that we are reminded of this profession of faith "every time we listen anew to the Passion according to St. Mark. This evening, like the centurion, we pause to gaze on the lifeless face of the Crucified One".

  "This man, seemingly one of us, Who while He was being killed forgave His executioners, is the Son of God Who, as the Apostle Paul reminds us, 'did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant ... He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross'.

  "The anguish of the Passion of the Lord Jesus cannot fail to move to pity even the most hardened hearts, as it constitutes the climax of the revelation of God's love for each of us", the Pope added.

  "Throughout the course of the millennia, a great multitude of men and women have been drawn deeply into this mystery and they have followed Him, making in their turn, like Him and with His help, a gift to others of their own lives. They are the saints and the martyrs, many of whom remain unknown to us. Even in our own time, how many people, in the silence of their daily lives, unite their sufferings with those of the Crucified One and become apostles of a true spiritual and social renewal!"

  Christ's disfigured face "is reflected in that of every person who is humiliated and offended, sick and suffering, alone, abandoned and despised. Pouring out His blood, He has rescued us from the slavery of death, He has broken the solitude of our tears, He has entered into our every grief and our every anxiety".

  In the certainty of the Resurrection "let us continue our journey", the Holy Father concluded. "Let us pray together with Mary, the Sorrowful Virgin, let us pray with all who are sorrowful, and especially with all the suffering people from the earthquake zone in L'Aquila: let us pray that in this dark night, the star of hope will appear also to them, the light of the Risen Lord".
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