Can't resist passing along one other bit from B16. This comes from yesterday's Rosary to end the month of May. This is a lovely Vatican tradition which one year RC2 got to be present for! To close the Marian month each year, the Vatican Gardens are opened at dusk for vespers and the rosary by candlelight. RC2 gathers the Pope usually joins at the end. At any rate, JPG did when she was there, and Benedict did last night. Here's what he said in part (keep in mind that yesterday was also the feast of the Visitation):
"Carrying the recently conceived Jesus in her womb, Mary goes to visit her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, whom everyone considered sterile, and yet she had reached the sixth month of a gestation gifted by God," Benedict XVI said. "She is a young maiden, but she is not afraid, because God is with her, within her," he said. "In a certain sense, we can say that her trip was -- we like to underline it in this Year of the Eucharist -- the first Eucharistic procession in history.
"When she enters Elizabeth's home, her greeting is brimming with grace: John leaps with joy in his mother's womb, as if perceiving the coming of the One whom he will have to announce to Israel."
"The sons exult, the mothers exult," the Pope said. "This meeting, full of joy of the Spirit, finds its expression in the canticle of the Magnificat." He asked: "Is not this also the joy of the Church, which receives Christ incessantly in the holy Eucharist and takes him to the world with the testimony of active charity, full of faith and hope?
"Yes, to receive Jesus and to take him to others is the true joy of the Christian! Let us follow and imitate Mary, profoundly Eucharistic soul, and our whole life will become a Magnificat."
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