Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Sunday 28 June at 6pm in St Paul's Basilica in Rome, the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, will preside solemn Vespers on the occasion of the closing of the Year of St Paul. Monday 29 June, at 5.30pm Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, Archpriest of St Paul's will preside Second Vespers at the end of which the St Paul's Door will be solemnly closed.
Special events to mark the occasion planned by the Benedictine Monks at the Abbey of St Paul's include: Friday 26 June 5.30pm Vespers presided by the Abbot of St Paul's Abbot Edmund Power, with representatives of different Christian communities present in Rome; Saturday 27 June, 5.30pm Vespers presided by Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. Sunday 28 June, 10.30am solemn Mass for the Benedictine community presided by Cardinal Francis Rodé, Prefect of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. In the early evening First Vespers of Saints Peter and Paul presided by the Holy Father. Monday 29 June will begin with solemn Morning Prayer presided by Abbot Edmund Power who will then celebrate Mass at 10.30am, whereas the evening Vespers will be presided by the Archbishop of the Basilica, Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, to close the Year of St Paul. In the evening at 8pm there will be a procession with the Chains of St Paul ( an old traditional now resumed) with the presence of large numbers of faithful.
On the occasion of the closing of the Year dedicated to the Apostle Paul, on 29 June, celebrations in various parts of the world at the same time will be presided by seven Cardinals appointed by the Holy Father as his Special Envoys (see Fides 27/4/2009). In a Letter dated 16 May addressed to Cardinal Walter Kasper, Papal Envoy to the Holy Land, (similar letters were sent to each of the seven Cardinals), Benedict XVI writes: “As the Year dedicated to the Apostle Paul comes to an end we have decided to send eminent Cardinals to those places where this illustrious announcer of Christ's Gospel, lived and worked, and which can rightly be called 'places of St Paul' ”. The Pope also says in the Letter: “Blessed was the Apostle Paul who wrote ‘For me to live is Christ', he is for us an example of how to love and obey the will of God, to serve the Lord and his Church”. The Holy Father asked Cardinal Kasper to urge bishops, priests, religious and lay men and women to foster unity and to encourage the faithful so that through prayer and meditation, “with new energy and new zeal”, they may “do the will of God ”, and to remind religious and civil authorities of the importance of the teaching of the Apostle of the Gentile and his concern for the salvation of the whole of humanity. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 23/6/2009; righe 35, parole 476)
