PHOTOS: Synod on Synodality delegates attend Divine Liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica

Courtney Mares   By Courtney Mares for CNA

October 9, 2023 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 0 Print

 

The second week of the Synod on Synodality assembly began Monday, Oct. 9, 2023, with a Greek-Byzantine Divine Liturgy offered in St. Peter’s Basilica for all Synod delegates. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2023 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

The second week of the Synod on Synodality assembly began Monday with a Greek-Byzantine Divine Liturgy offered in St. Peter’s Basilica for all synod delegates.

Patriarchs representing many Eastern Catholic Churches chanted prayers and processed up to the basilica’s Altar of the Chair, where Patriarch Youssef Absi, the Greek Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, presided over the morning liturgy on Oct. 9.

An icon of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez
An icon of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez

Standing under the amber stained-glass window depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove, Absi frequently incensed the altar, adorned with two Byzantine icons for the liturgy, as the Pontifical Greek College choir offered sung chants.

Standing under the amber stained-glass window depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove, Patriarch Youssef Absi, the Greek Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, frequently incensed the altar, adorned with two Byzantine icons for the liturgy, as the Pontifical Greek College choir offered sung chants, Oct. 9, 2023. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez
Standing under the amber stained-glass window depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove, Patriarch Youssef Absi, the Greek Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, frequently incensed the altar, adorned with two Byzantine icons for the liturgy, as the Pontifical Greek College choir offered sung chants, Oct. 9, 2023. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez

Lebanese Cardinal Béchara Boutros Raï, the head of the Maronite Catholic Church, gave the homily and underlined the challenges that the synod assembly has been asked to address, including that of “building a just peace where wars bloody our lands.”

“The situation of the world of today and the condition of the peoples who are poor, lost, persecuted, discarded, disappointed, innocent victims of wars, homeless, and wounded in their human dignity all truly arouse the compassion of Christ, who chose us one by one to fashion these wounds and to fight for a better world, so as to dwell in our common home in peace and tranquility,” Raï said.

Alluding to the Gospel of Matthew, the patriarch said that “the harvest” of challenges is great, “but the laborers are few.”

After describing many challenges facing the Church from Christian persecution to healing the wounds of sexual abuse and promoting human dignity, the cardinal underlined that “the workers of the harvest are the bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated women and men, and the baptized laity.”

He said that everyone needs “formation in a life of communion, mission, and participation, as well as in a synodal spirituality which is at the heart of the renewal of the Church.”

A Greek-Byzantine Divine Liturgy offered in St. Peter’s Basilica for all Synod delegates Oct. 9, 2023. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez
A Greek-Byzantine Divine Liturgy offered in St. Peter’s Basilica for all Synod delegates Oct. 9, 2023. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez

The Divine Liturgy was one of five liturgies that will be offered in St. Peter’s Basilica for the roughly 450 participants throughout the nearly monthlong 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Other Masses will be on Oct. 13, 18, and 23 at 8:45 a.m. in addition to the closing Mass presided over by Pope Francis on Oct. 29 at 10 a.m.

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Vatican approves special Fatima feast day for the Traditional Latin Mass

April 6, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Apr 6, 2017 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican office which governs the use of the extraordinary form of the Roman rite has given priests permission to say a special Mass for the feast of Our Lady of Fatima this year, noting the importance of the apparition’s centenary.

In an April 5 decree the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei gave permission for any priest of the Latin Rite to celebrate a votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary on May 13, 2017 – the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, Portugal.

The decision was made because “many of the Christian faithful who are attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite have a particular and fervent devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima” and out of a wish “to encourage the devotion of the faithful to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima,” according to a translation of the decree made by Gregory DiPippo, editor of New Liturgical Movement.

The permission is significant because in the extraordinary form, May 13 is the third class feast of St. Robert Bellarmine – which means Our Lady of Fatima cannot normally be celebrated.

In the ordinary form, meanwhile, May 13 is already an optional memorial of Our Lady of Fatima.

If a Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart is celebrated on May 13 in the extraordinary form, it may include a commemoration of St. Robert Bellarmine, as per the rubrics of the Roman Missal of 1962.

The Marian apparitions at Fatima are among the most famous of Mary’s appearances. On May 13, 1917, siblings Francisco and Jacinta Marto – age 9 and 7 – and their cousin, 10-year-old Lucia dos Santos, were taking their sheep to graze when they saw a figure of a woman dressed in white and holding a rosary.

After this first appearance, the Virgin Mary then appeared to the children on the 13th of every month from May until October. The message of the Fatima apparitions can be summarized primarily as a call to repentance and prayer.

Francisco and Jacinta died in 1919 and 1920, respectively, and were beatified in 2000. The path to their canonization was opened in March, when a second miracle attributed to their intercession was recognized by the Pope.

Lucia became a Carmelite nun and died in 2005. Her cause for beatification is open.

In 1930, the Church proclaimed the supernatural character of the apparitions and a shrine was erected at Fatima. It was visited by Blessed Paul VI in 1967, and later by St. John Paul II and by Benedict XVI.

St. John Paul II had a particularly strong devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. After a harrowing assassination attempt in 1981, he credited his survival to her miraculous intervention. As a sign of his gratitude, he placed the bullet from the failed assassination in her crown.

Pope Francis will make a pilgrimage to the Fatima shrine for the centenary of the apparition next month.

He will visit the chapel of the apparitions and bless candles there on May 12. The following day, he will say Mass in the square before the shrine and greet the sick. He is also scheduled to meet with Portugal’s bishops, president, and prime minister.

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