The Pope presides over Mass in the convent closing Mass at the Vatican in our Monastery Vatican City (Wednesday, 15/12/2010, Gaudium Press) In the period of Advent, which prepares the Catholic Church to live again Christmas, the commitments of Pope Benedict XVI take a more pastoral. Yesterday morning the Holy Father came to visit and celebrate Mass for the seven nuns of the convent "Mater Ecclesiae" in the Vatican Gardens, reported the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an article entitled "Jesus is Final Word of God. "
In the feast of San Juan de la Cruz and at the conclusion of the fourth centenary of the founding of the Order of the Visitation Pope talked about Jesus, the Word final God for men, because in person he was giving himself the true figure of the Father. The international convent of contemplative life in the Vatican was a wish of Pope John Paul II. The shifts are committed to various female orders for five years. From the October 7, 2009 is the Visitation nuns in of Santa Maria.
Among the topics addressed in the homily the Holy Father found the thought of Juan de la Cruz on the paschal mystery and the way in which God manifested himself to people in the Old Testament. "At the center of his life, in fact, is the cross, loved intimately. Experiencing the Holy Cross knew that it is love and that its mystery is fulfilled the mystery of love" - \u200b\u200bthe Pope said. All the Christian mystery is unique, but the Holy pays attention to the paschal mystery and the identity between the cross and love.
Speaking about the forms of demonstrations God, the pope recalled that in the New Testament, there are many ways in which God spoke: is Jesus Christ which was felt His Word. For this he said nothing more, but his word is his own son. It was able to meet their human figure, the figure of the triune God. The vocation of man, therefore, is to get into this whole, is being touched and penetrated inside the richness of the gift which is God himself.
The Mass was concelebrated by two personal secretaries of the Holy Father, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, and Alfred Xuereb, in addition to Bishop Peter Bryan Wells, consultant, and some prelates Secretariat of State, Archbishop Giampiero Glod, Erbium Walter Bishop, Mark Bishop Gerard Miles, Bishop Winfrid König, Archbishop Markus Heinz. With them was this also the Salesian Valentine Viguera, assistant general of the Order of the Visitation .
The Holy Father, at the end of his visit to the Sisters of the Visitation , was the superior of the monastery, Sister Maria Begoña Sancho, a silver cross made as those using nuns from Annecy and containing relics of St. Francis de Sales, St. Joan of Chantal and Santa Margarida Alacoque. She also Pope gave the sacred objects made for poor churches: 400 dawns, 400 girdles, 600 cleaners, 900 beads, 400 copies in French of the "Introduction à la vie devote" (Introduction to the Devout Life) Francis de Sales and 2,800 scapulars Sacred Heart.
On Monday, 13 December, the feast of Santa Luzia, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, new prefect of the Congregation for Bishops , the nuns had presided concelebrated Mass for the conclusion of the 400 anniversary of the founding of the Order of the Visitation .
