Tomorrow morning at 11:30 the Holy Father will celebrate Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the cardinals and bishops who have died this past year – this is also a traditional event.

To give you some food for thought - and perhaps some pleasure - over the weekend, I am leaving the article and photos of the Sistine Chapel.

”VATICAN INSIDER” TO FEATURE ARCHBISHOP GUSTAVO OF SAN ANTONIO

My guest this week on “Vatican Insider” is Archbishop Gustavo Garcia Siller of San Antonio – though he asks everyone he meets to call him “Archbishop Gustavo.” He is a good friend – we first met when he was auxiliary in Chicago – and beloved bishop and pastor, as I saw in 2010 when he received the pallium in Rome and invited me to the archdiocesan pilgrimage dinner celebrating that event.

I met his parents that night – an amazing couple, parents of 15 children, good dancers (the musicians played “their” song) and very much in love. You will not want to miss a second when we talk about his Mom and Dad!

Archbishop Gustavo and I spoke while he was in Rome for the recent synod for the new evangelization. I feature Part I this week and we will conclude our talk next weekend.

As you know, you can listen to Vatican Insider on a Catholic radio station near you (a list of U.S. stations is at www.ewtn.com) or on Sirius satellite radio at channel 130. If you live outside the U.S. you can listen to EWTN radio on our web page: click on the right side where you see “LISTEN TO EWTN.” Vatican Insider airs Saturday mornings at 9:30 am (Eastern time) and re-airs Sundays at 4:30 pm (ET). To go to Vatican Insider archives: http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/file_index.asp?SeriesId=7096&pgnu=

Spread the word – be part of the new evangelization by helping me evangelize!

BENEDICT XVI: THE SISTINE CHAPEL, “A LITURGICAL CLASSROOM”

Pope Benedict celebrated vespers last evening in the Sistine Chapel to mark the fifth centenary of the decoration of the chapel ceiling by Michelangelo, who completed his four-year artistic odyssey in 1512. Pope Julius II marked the ceiling’s completion by celebrating vespers in the chapel exactly 500 years earlier, on October 31, 1512.

The Sistine Chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV who, in the late 15th century, restored an earlier chapel, commissioning artists such as Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Perugino to create frescoes on the side walls that depict the lives of Jesus Christ and Moses. Pope Sixtus celebrateD the first Mass in the newly restored Sistine Chapel on August 15, 1483.

Michelangelo was commissioned by Julius II to fresco both the ceiling (all 12,000 square feet!) and the altar wall. The altar fresco, the renowned Last Judgment, also took four years to complete.

According to Pope Benedict, the Sistine Chapel “tells this story of light, of release, of salvation, it speaks of God’s relationship with mankind. With Michelangelo’s ingenious vault, the eyes are driven to go over the message of the Prophets, which the pagan sibyls add to, waiting for Christ from all time.”

The Holy Father said, “the world is not a product of darkness, of chance, of absurdity, it comes from an Intelligence, a Freedom, a supreme gesture of Love.” He said this is the truth the great Michelangelo intended to show with his “great fresco” on the vault: “In that meeting between God’s finger and man’s finger, we feel the contact between heaven and earth; in Adam, God enters a new relationship with his creation, man is in direct contact with Him, he is called by Him, he is in God’s image and likeness.”

The Pope noted that 20 years later, in the Last Judgment, Michelangelo “would end the great parable of man’s journey, driving the eyes to look at the accomplishment of this reality of the world and of man, at the final encounter with Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead.”

The Pope, calling the Sistine Chapel a “liturgical classroom,” said praying in the chapel is “a call to praise, a call to raise to God the Maker, the Redeemer and the Judge of the living and the dead, with all the Heavenly Saints, the words of the Canticle of the Apocalypse: ‘Amen, hallelujah’.”

SYNOD 2012 FINAL LIST OF PROPOSITIONS: NUMBER 6

Proposition 6 : PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL

God, our savior, wills everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (cf. 1 Tim 2: 4). Since the Church believes in this divine plan of universal salvation she must be missionary (cf. Evangelii nuntiandi, 14, CCC, 851). She also knows that “those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.” (Lumen gentium , 16). The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the proclamation of his life and of the paschal mystery of his passion, death, resurrection and glorification.

The Council reminds us, however, that evangelization is necessary for the salvation of all since “But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator (cf. Rm 1: 21, 25). Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, ‘Preach the Gospel to every creature’ (Mk 16:15), the Church fosters the missions with care and attention” (Lumen gentium, 16).

Write to Joan at:
joansrome@ewtn.com 

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