90 buses were set in from all over Sicily, and other attendees came from all parts of Italy when Medjugorje visionary Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti had a public apparition on Palermo’s football stadium on Saturday, April 21. More than 30,000 heard Marija tell them to rally around the Church.

At least 30,000 people filled the seats, 450 volunteers took charge of the practical affairs, 70 priests concelebrated Mass, and 100 extraordinary Eucharistic ministers helped distribute Communion during Mass when Medjugorje visionary Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti visited Palermo, Sicily, on Saturday.

Initially planned to take place at the city’s velodrome, the public interest soon turned out to far exceed its capacity which led to the change of venue, the Italian news agency ANSA reports.

“Rally around the Church” Marija told the crowd who welcomed her back to Sicily for the first time in 11 years by waving white handkerchiefs, the regional newspaper Giornale di Sicilia writes.

The gates opened at 2 pm, but many had been waiting in line since early morning, among them 45 years old Anna Romeo, the national newspaper L’Unita informs.

Source Medjugorje TV

After the storm created by the abuses scandal, the resurfacing of the Church in the United States has begun. With the closure of the “horrible decade” 2001-2011 (afflicted by a series of financial and reputation disasters) the US Church shows clear signs of recovery. In the last year there have been 467 sacerdotal ordinations and, poignantly, the Boston seminary (diocese-epicenter of the pedophilia-scandal) has become the symbol of the rebirth. This year, Cardinal Sean Patrick O’ Malley, sent by the Pope to Boston to enact “purification” and to reconstruct the local Church from the foundations, had to reject some applications to the seminary because there were too many. The Wall Street Journal also documents this unexpected “boom” with a broad inquiry into the “victorious Catholicism” and attributes it to the traditional character of the Catholicism of the new Episcopal leadership, the so-called Ratzinger-like “creative conservatives”.

The US positive vocations data is in counter-trend when compared to the general vocation crisis in the rest of the western world. In 2011, more than half of the ordinations in the United States have involved young people between 25 and 34 years of age. In the US, the ordinations of young clergymen have increased for the fifth consecutive year. The group of US neo-clergymen includes various refugees from lands where Christians are persecuted, military veterans and ministers who are converted from other religions. The most recent data from the Pontifical Yearbook and from the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae show unequivocally how the universal Church is growing thanks to the Third World. In the last five years, the number of philosophy or theology students in diocesan or religious seminaries has constantly grown thanks to a non-western increase.

On the whole it has grown 4%, from 114,439 units in 2005 to 118,990 in 2010. While decreasing in Europe (- 10.4%), the greatest seminarists increases are in Africa (+14.2%), in Asia (+13.0%) and in Oceania (+12.3%). The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University has made an inquiry from which it has emerged that 69% of the total is white (European, Caucasian and American), while 15% is composed of Latin/Hispanics and 10% of Asians and Pacific Islanders. Approximately a third of the people ordained have a relative who is a clergyman. More than half has more than two siblings; a quarter has five or more. The report emphasizes that 21% of the ordained participated in a World Youth Day before starting seminary. 70% of the total is assiduous in the regular prayer of the Rosary, and 65% participated to the Eucaristic Adoration before entering the seminary. On average, the neo-seminarists began feeling their vocation towards their 16th year of life. It was a clergyman who exhorted 66% of the seminarists to consider the priesthood. 71% have been encouraged in their vocation by a friend, clergyman, grandfather, relative or faithful of the parish, while half said they had been discouraged by someone. The more common extra-curricular pastimes or activities among them are listening to music (73%), reading (67%), watching movies (62%), playing soccer (41%), hiking (33%), cooking (33%) and playing an instrument (33%).

The vocations trend in the United States is exactly the opposite of the one recorded in Ireland, another country of the secular West hit by the pedophilia-cyclone. In fact, the decline of the sacerdotal vocations in Ireland has not stopped, as demonstrated by the last annual report of the Council for Research and Development of the Irish Episcopal Conference, according to which the number of clergymen in the Emerald Island has decreased by 2%. And there are more and more eighty-year-old priests or older as opposed to under-thirty-year-old clergy. “This decline is not strange”, comments Eoin O’ Mahony, the author of the report, “we have known for a few years that the number of new sacerdotal ordinations is not sufficient to compensate for the number of older priests who retire or pass away.”

The decline of sacerdotal vocations in Ireland has been happening for four decades. It is mostly blamed on the secularization caused by the economic boom of recent years. The sexual abuse cases that have involved the Irish clergy in the 1990s have not helped; the negative peak was in fact reached in that decade. From the year 2000 to today, the number of priests has decreased by 10%.

Read the rest of the article at The Vatican Insider.

By the end of this year, the International Commission of Inquiry into the apparitions of Medjugorje, presided by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, will  conclude its work with a pronouncement that will be submitted to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then to Pope Benedict XVI.  This morning, the Cardinal was received in audience by the Pope to discuss the progress of the investigation.

When Ratzinger established this work group in early 2010, the director of the Vatican press office said that “the commission itself does not take decisions and does not make the final pronouncements, but provides the results of its study, its vote – to put it in technical terms – to the Congregation, which will then take the appropriate decisions.”

When the apparitions in Medjugorje started, a diocesan commission was established , whose work was then taken over by the Bishops’ Conference of Yugoslavia. The latter however failed to pronounce itself on whether the phenomena was supernatural or not concluding in 1991, with the declaration “non constat de supernaturalitate,”  that: “It is not proven that there is anything supernatural here:” a classic cautious expression, since the bishops were not able to either approve or reject it, a sign that although there was insufficient evidence to confirm that there was a supernatural dimension involved, there was no evidence that it was a scam as claimed by the Bishop of Mostar, either.

 The verdict, which remained open to further developments, gave no definitive answer. In fact, in the first case the statement asserts that a supernatural element does “exist”, thus establishing official recognition.  In the second case, the negative one, it affirms that “It is not proven that there is anything supernatural here”, ascertaining that the phenomenon is not supernatural.

 It was the bishops of Bosnia and Herzegovina who asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to take matters in hand. The Committee is made up of six cardinals. The previouslly mentioned Cardinal Ruini, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the Salesian Archbishop Angelo Amato; Jozef Tomko, Emeritus Prefect of Propaganda Fide; Vinko Pulijc, Archbishop of Sarajevo and Josip Bozanic, Archbishop of Zagreb; Julian Herranz, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. They are also flanked by theologians and experts in Mariology.

 As already known, the Bishop of Mostar,  in office at the time of the apparitions in 1981 – under whose jurisdiction the diocese Medjugorje falls, strongly denied the appearances. Ratko Peric, his successor, also rejected them.  Recently, some documents that emerged from the archives have shown that the secret services of Yugoslavia’s communist regime had attempted to negatively influence the ecclesiastical authorities at that time.

The commission, headed by Ruini, has already met will all the visionaries secretly convened in Rome.  The meetings took place in one of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s halls, here the archives of the work group are kept.

Medjugorje Visionaries

The committee members prepare appointments well in advance, so that all can be present.  So, since last June, the persons heard and questioned were firstly, Ivanka, then Vicka, and then Mirjana and Marja (separately, but on the same day) at the end of 2011. In recent days, Ivan and Jakov were also heard.

In a recent public statement Cardinal Vinko Pulijc announced that the work would be completed within the year.  It is currently not possible to predict what the final verdict will be.  The seers generally made a good impression on the commissioners.  But the outcome considered most likely at the moment in the Holy See, is a repeat of the 1991 suspension of judgement, a “supernatural dimension is not certain” without openly taking a stand for or against.

The appearances, which started in June 24, 1981, still continue, albeit limited, for some of the seers that ensure that they meet with the Virgin Mary at a certain time of day, wherever they are.

 Mary, who defines herself the “Queen of Peace,” began to appear in a parish run by Franciscan friars, and the village of Medjugorje, which still today is rather difficult to reach, has attracted millions of people, in spite of the public disavowals of the Bishops of Mostar.

In 1998, the then Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Tarcisio Bertone, explained that the pilgrimages were permitted, “provided they are not considered as an authentication of events still in progress and require an examination by the Church.”

Many people also testified to have rediscovered the faith and to have returned from Medjugorje changed.

Source: The Vatican Insider

In February, 2010, James Caviezel made his sixth pilgrimage to Medjugorje, and afterwards traveled to Vienna where he gave an interview to Christian Stelzer for the magazine Oase des Friedens. The following is taken from the Croatian translation, published in the latest edition of the Medjugorje parish magazine, Glasnik mira.

• Jim, can you tell us, how did you hear about Medjugorje?

Jim Caviezel with his wife Kerri

My wife came to Medjugorje while I was in Ireland, shooting the movie “Monte Cristo.” Things were not that great, although I worked seven days a week. One day she called me, and I could notice in her voice that there was a change. She started talking about Medjugorje, and how one of visionaries was about to come to Ireland. I interrupted her by saying: “Listen, I really have some serious stuff to do. I am not able now to go into anything with any of the visionaries.” Besides that, I thought that, as a Catholic, I didn’t have to necessarily accept Lourdes or Fatima or Medjugorje. That is how I thought. I remember that in the Catholic school I attended earlier in my life, when we heard about Medjugorje we were thrilled, but we soon found out that the local bishop was objecting and considered the apparitions to be false, and so we lost our interest immediately.

The visionary Ivan Dragicevic came to Ireland, and I knew straightaway that I would not have time for him, since I had to work all the time. One day my movie partner Jim Harris wasn’t feeling well, so I got the day off, and I was able to attend an apparition. I stood at the very back of the packed church, and I wasn’t quite sure about what was going on. But when the man next to me in his wheelchair fell down on his knees at the time of the apparition, I was deeply moved. I thought, This handicapped man, despite all of his pains, is kneeling down on the cold stone floor, and he is praying! Today I realize only God could have known me so well. He knew where exactly He needed to touch me to get my attention!

Although it might sound strange, on the following Sunday, I got another day off, and I was able to meet with Ivan, which was my wife’s special wish. During the time of apparition, I knelt close to him, and I said in my heart, “Okay, here I am. I am ready. Do with me what you want.” In the same moment, I felt as something was fulfilling me. It was very simple, and yet unique. When I got up, tears were running down my cheeks, and I started to cry with all of my heart.

Ivan told me, “Jim. Man always finds time for what he loves. If somebody who doesn’t have any time finds a girlfriend and falls in love with her, he will always find time for her. People don’t have time for God, because they do not love Him.” And he continued, “God is inviting you to pray with the heart.”

I asked him: “How am I supposed to do that?”

“By starting to pray,” he replied. In that moment the doors of my heart were opened. I couldn’t have even dreamed of that being possible. We went to a restaurant, and I must admit that the wine and food I had was never as tasteful as on that particular night.

Something started to change within me. My wife wanted to teach me on many occasions in the past how to pray the rosary, but I always refused to learn. Now I wanted to pray, but I did not know exactly how to do that. I just felt that my heart was opened. One morning, as I was driving to work, I said to the driver who was taking me for filming every day, “I don’t know how you feel about this, but I would want to start to pray the rosary.” To my amazement, he just replied, “Okay, let’s pray.”

In the warm light of love that I felt within me, I was able to realize where I really was, how many temptations I had, what my feelings were, how weak I was, and how strictly I judged other people.

• When did you come to Medjugorje for the first time?

After filming was completed, and that was in Malta, I decided to come to Medjugorje. When I was 20, an inner voice would say to me that I should become an actor. When I spoke about that with my father, he used to say, “If God wants something of you it is for you to become a priest. Why would He want you to become an actor?” I did not understand either at that time.

Again, I asked myself the same question, Does God want me to become an actor to make lots of money and to become rich? I was aware of the imbalance in the world between those who have a lot and those who barely have enough for survival, and I knew that was not what God wanted. And was I to make a choice to seek wealth, which does not provide permanent happiness, or to serve God, Who wants to guide my life?

At that time, Medjugorje reminded me of Bethlehem, and I thought, Just as Jesus was born in a small place, in the same way, the Mother of God is appearing in a poor village in between hills. Those four days I spent in Medjugorje, at that time, were my turning point. In the very beginning, I was still amazed at how much people prayed in Medjugorje. Everything reminded me of basketball camp. There you do not play just one match a day, but continually. The same as in school, where you do not read just once a day, but always, repeatedly. In those first days in Medjugorje, I felt inner unrest while I was praying, because I was not used to praying that much, and I was asking God to help me. After four days the only thing I wanted to do was to pray. Whenever I prayed, I felt connected with God. That was an experience I would wish for every Catholic! Maybe as a child, I felt something similar, and I forgot about it. Now it was given to me again.

The same experience continued back at home. In our family, we live the sacraments together. As we drive the kids to school, we pray the rosary together. Sometimes when I don’t start to pray, my son starts first.

When I came to Medjugorje for the second time, I expected to have those first, initial experiences again, but it was different. After lunch one day, some pilgrims invited me to go with them to visit Fr. Jozo Zovko in Siroki Brijeg. That was also my wife’s desire. I didn’t know Fr. Jozo personally, but I was very much impressed by all stories I heard about him. I met with him. He laid his hands on my shoulders. I laid mine on his shoulders. He laid his hands on my head. I laid mine on his head. In that moment, I felt the words within me: “I love you, my brother. This man loves God.” Fr. Jozo spontaneously turned towards his interpreter and asked her who I was and said that he wanted to talk to me. That was beginning of a lasting friendship.

That was the time immediately after we finished shooting the “Passion,” and around that time, I was able to experience all conflicting forces within me regarding that movie.

• Can you tell us why you felt that way, and what was the connection between that movie and Medjugorje?

You are probably familiar with expression “to cross the Rubicon.” That means it is not possible to go back. You reach the point of no return. The “Passion” was such a Rubicon for me. When shooting started, I was 33 years old, just like Jesus. I always wondered if I was even worthy to play Jesus. Ivan Dragicevic encouraged me and said that God does not always necessarily choose the best, which is something he sees in his own situation. If it wasn’t for Medjugorje, I wouldn’t have ever agreed to take that part, because it was in Medjugorje that my heart opened to prayer and to the sacraments. If I wanted to play Jesus, I knew I needed to be very close to Him. Every day I went to Confession, and I attended Eucharistic Adoration. Mel Gibson was coming to Holy Mass, as well, with the condition that Holy Mass was in Latin. That was good because in that way I learned Latin.

There were always new temptations from which I needed to defend myself, and in those inner battles, I used to feel great inner peace – for instance, in the scene where the Mother of God approaches me, and I say to her: “Look, I make everything anew.” We repeated that scene four times, and I felt every time that I was standing too much in the forefront. Then somebody hit the cross, and my left shoulder was dislocated. Due to that sudden and sharp, intense pain, I lost balance, and I fell under the weight of the cross. I hit the dusty ground with my face, and blood gushed forth suddenly from my nose and mouth. I repeated the words Jesus said to His mother: “Look, I make everything anew.” My shoulder was in incredible pain when I took the cross again and felt how precious it was. At that point, I stopped acting, and you could only see Jesus. He came forward as to the answer to my prayer: “I want people to see you, Jesus, not me!”

Thanks to continuous prayer of the rosary – I can’t begin to tell how many rosaries I said during the time of shooting – I was able to experience a special grace. I knew I wasn’t supposed to use bad language. I knew I couldn’t be rude if I wanted to say something to members of the crew. Most of them did not know about Medjugorje. They were all great actors, and we were lucky to get them. But how was I to bring Medjugorje to them, if not by my own life? Medjugorje, for me, means to live the sacraments and be in unity with the Church. Thanks to Medjugorje, I started to believe that Jesus was really present in the Eucharist and that He forgives my sins. Through Medjugorje, I experienced how the rosary is a powerful prayer and what a gift we have when we attend Holy Mass every day.

How could I help other people to increase their faith in Jesus? I realized that this can only happen if Jesus is present in me through the Eucharist, and so people would see Jesus through my life. When we were shooting the scene of the Last Supper, I had an inner pocket made in my clothes where I placed some relics of saints and a relic of Christ’s Cross. I had a strong desire for Jesus to be really present, and so I asked the priest to expose the Blessed Sacrament. At first, he did not want to do that, but I was persistent in asking, because I was positive that people would recognize Christ more, if I myself was looking at Him. The priest was standing with the Blessed Sacrament in his hands next to a cameraman, and together with him, he approached me. When people watch the movie and see a shimmer in my eyes, they are not aware that they really see Jesus, a reflection of the consecrated Host, in my eyes. The same was in the scene of the Crucifixion. The priest was there; he held the Blessed Sacrament in his hands, and I prayed all the time.

The biggest challenge in the movie was not, as I originally thought, to memorize all the texts in Latin, Aramaic, or Hebrew, but all the physical efforts I needed to overcome. During the last scene, my shoulder was sprained, and it became dislocated every time somebody hit the cross. While we filmed the scenes of the scourging, I was twice caught by those whips, and I had a 14 cm wound on my back. My lungs were full of fluid, and I had pneumonia. Chronic sleep deprivation should be added to that, since for months, I had to get up at 3:00 in the morning, because make-up would take almost eight hours.

Another special challenge was the cold weather, temperatures hardly above zero, which was especially difficult to endure in the Crucifixion scene. My whole costume was made of one single piece of light fabric. While we were shooting the last scene, the clouds were very low and lightning struck the cross to which I was tied. Suddenly everything was silent around me, and I felt my hair standing on edge. About 250 people who were around me saw my whole body being illuminated, and they all saw fire on the left and on the right side of me. Many were shocked at what they saw.

I know that the “Passion” is movie of love, maybe one of the greatest of such movies. Jesus today is subject of many controversies, more than ever before. There are so many factors that threaten this created world, but faith in Jesus is the source of joy. I think God is calling us in a special way in this time, and we need to answer that call with our whole heart and whole body.

Source of the interview Medjugorje Miracles

Vicka always attracted the most attention when the young Medjugorje visionaries were still having simultaneous group apparitions in the early 1980s. With her very extrovert and energetic reaction, gesticulating, smiling and shining, she stood out from the rest of the seers.

No different today, a video of Vicka’s apparition on November 13 in Corridonia, Italy, shows. Lasting more than 13 minutes, Vicka’s apparition was considerably longer than recent public apparitions to fellow visionaries Ivan Dragicevic and Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti. One report from Corridonia talks about a 15 minutes apparition, matching the beginning part to be missing in the video.

It is the first time for many years a recording of an almost complete apparition to Vicka appears, her daily apparitions taking place in private as a rule. The apparition in Corridonia was Vicka’s third public apparition this year, the first two having taken place in February in Dublin, Ireland.

Medjugorje TV

For eight months, 2 years old Joshua battled a last stage cancer with a transplantation, 80 chemotherapy cures, and 17 radiotherapy sessions. When nothing worked, his parents took their son to Medjugorje. Back home, tests showed 19 tumors and all bone metastases to be gone as the beginning of Joshua’s now complete recovery.

Before he turned three years old, Joshua de Nicolo had experienced more hardships, drama, and obvious grace than many people do in an entire life.

The boy from Putignano in southern Italy was born with an un-discovered neuroblastoma, the most common form of infancy cancer, in February 2007. It took 22 months for Joshua’s true condition to be found in January 2009 when the illness had progressed to its last stage, 4D, where long-term survival rates are poor despite aggressive multimodal therapy.

Elizabeth de Nicolo, Joshua’s mother said, “The doctor told us that Joshua “was miraculously healed.” And Dr. Xavier Ladogana, the director of the oncological department, went further: “What happened to your child is scientifically inexplicable. With the resources and knowledge we have at our disposal, we cannot give an accurate and incontestable medical explanation. We can only say that the child no longer has the same disease he had before the pilgrimage.”

For the full story, see www.medjugorjetoday.tv

Dates:  November 5 & 6, 2011 (Saturday and Sunday)

Location:  The White Performing Arts Center at Clearwater Central Catholic High School, Clearwater, FL

Keynote speaker is Father Tim Devine, CC.  Father Devine has been blind since birth, and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 2003.

Other speakers include Msgr. Michael Devine, co-author of the new book Great Characters; Christine Walkins, who recently appeared on ABC Nightline on a special about the Blessed Mother; Ken & Grace Hipp; Mary Sue Eck; Father Joseph Amalfitano, healing priest; Father Vincent Morton and hosts Mike and Sandy Tobin.

Get your tickets now by calling 352-564-2463.   Visit the conference page on this site.

Seeing you here, gathered in such great numbers from all parts of the world, fills my heart with joy. I think of the special love with which Jesus is looking upon you. Yes, the Lord loves you and calls you his friends (cf. Jn 15:15). He goes out to meet you and he wants to accompany you on your journey, to open the door to a life of fulfilment and to give you a share in his own closeness to the Father. For our part, we have come to know the immensity of his love and we want to respond generously to his love by sharing with others the joy we have received”

This is the life plan that Benedict XVI delivered this morning at the concluding Mass of World Youth Day (WYD) in Madrid’s Cuatro Vientos airport, turned into a vast expanse of flags, hats, multicoloured shirts.

In this space, the equivalent of 50 football pitches, two million young people spent the night in prayer, dancing, meditations, rest. Before the celebration, the pope greeted them, thanking them for their courage in defying the intemperate weather and difficulties during the night.

Lightening during the World Youth Day in Madrid.

The powerful storm the night before damaged 17 temporary chapels located in various areas of the camp, which were to have been places of perpetual adoration during the night. One of them collapsed, slightly injuring seven young Spaniards. The police cordoned off the area for safety. As a result, there were difficulties in meeting the needs of the 2 million people present. In addition, because of the enormous influx of young people, some of the emergency channels were filled by newcomers, making the crowd flow in some areas of Cuatro Ventos impossible. Because of this, the organizers warned and asked young people for the sacrifice of going without receiving Communion, which was only distributed to people on the stage and a few other sectors.

Taking the Mass Gospel (Mt 16.13 to 20) the pope spoke of ” two different ways of knowing Christ”. In the first “Christ is seen as yet another religious figure, like those who came before him”, iin the second ” is more than just empirical or historical facts; it is an ability to grasp the mystery of Christ’s person in all its depth”

“Faith – explained the pope – does not simply provide information about who Christ is; rather, it entails a personal relationship with Christ, a surrender of our whole person, with all our understanding, will and feelings, to God’s self-revelation. So Jesus’ question: “But who do you say that I am?”, is ultimately a challenge to the disciples to make a personal decision in his regard”.

“Dear young people, – he continued – today Christ is asking you the same question which he asked the Apostles: “Who do you say that I am?” Respond to him with generosity and courage, as befits young hearts like your own. Say to him: “Jesus, I know that you are the Son of God, who have given your life for me. I want to follow you faithfully and to be led by your word. You know me and you love me. I place my trust in you and I put my whole life into your hands. I want you to be the power that strengthens me and the joy which never leaves me”.

Since “Christ cannot be separated from the Church”, “following Jesus in faith means walking at his side in the communion of the Church. We cannot follow Jesus on our own. Anyone who would be tempted to do so “on his own”, or to approach the life of faith with kind of individualism so prevalent today, will risk never truly encountering Jesus, or will end up following a counterfeit Jesus”. “I ask you, dear friends,- he adds – to love the Church which brought you to birth in the faith, which helped you to grow in the knowledge of Christ and which led you to discover the beauty of his love”.

Pope Benedict XVI welcomes the youth at World Youth Day in Madrid

“Friendship with Jesus– concluded Benedict XVI – will also lead you to bear witness to the faith wherever you are, even when it meets with rejection or indifference. We cannot encounter Christ and not want to make him known to others. So do not keep Christ to yourselves! Share with others the joy of your faith. The world needs the witness of your faith, it surely needs God”.

The vigil yesterday focused on the need for mission in a world dominated by indifference and rejection of faith. Today the Pope went further, urging young people to universal mission: “I think that the presence here of so many young people, coming from all over the world, is a wonderful proof of the fruitfulness of Christ’s command to the Church: “Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16:15). You too have been given the extraordinary task of being disciples and missionaries of Christ in other lands and countries filled with young people who are looking for something greater and, because their heart tells them that more authentic values do exist, they do not let themselves be seduced by the empty promises of a lifestyle which has no room for God”.

The theme of the mission among peers was also the focal point of his final farewell to the young people of WYD 2011. Indeed, Cardinal. Stanislas Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, who presented the young people as “the youth of the Pope,” spoke of a “missionary mandate”. For this, five young people received from the hands of the pontiff a crucifix, while all the youth were wearing a small crucifix around their neck as a sign of witness, which the Pope has blessed.

World Youth Day in Madrid

And before the end of Mass, Benedict XVI told them: ” I invite you to give a bold witness of Christian living to them. In this way you will give birth to new Christians and will help the Church grow strongly in the hearts of many others. During these days, how often I have thought of the young people at home who are waiting for your return! Take my affectionate greetings to them, to those less fortunate, to your families and to the Christian communities that you come from”.

The pope then gave an appointment for the next World Youth Day in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro: ” I am pleased now to announce that the next World Youth Day will be held in 2013, in Rio de Janeiro. Even now, let us ask the Lord to assist all those who will organize it, and to ease the journey there of young people from all over the world, so that they will be able to join me in that beautiful city of Brazil”.

And then he added: ” before we say good-bye, and while the young people of Spain pass on the World Youth Day cross to the young people of Brazil, as Successor of Peter I entrust all of you present with this task: make the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ known to the whole world! He wants you to be the apostles of the twenty-first century and the messengers of his joy. Do not let him down! Thank you very much”.

And greeting Portuguese-speaking pilgrims, he told them: “I hope to meet you in two years time at the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro.”

The Mass ended with the Angelus prayer, in absolute silence. Immediately after the party begun, especially among young Brazilians.

Its origin is lost in those days when Jerusalem was restored as a sacred city, at the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 285-337). By then it had been a pagan city for two centuries, ever since Emperor Hadrian (76-138) had leveled it around the year 135 and rebuilt it as in honor of Jupiter.

For 200 years, every memory of Jesus was obliterated from the city, and the sites made holy by His life, death and Resurrection became pagan temples.

After the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 336, the sacred sites began to be restored and memories of the life of Our Lord began to be celebrated by the people of Jerusalem. One of the memories about his mother centered around the “Tomb of Mary,” close to Mount Zion, where the early Christian community had lived.

On the hill itself was the “Place of Dormition,” the spot of Mary’s “falling asleep,” where she had died. The “Tomb of Mary” was where she was buried.

At this time, the “Memory of Mary” was being celebrated. Later it was to become our feast of the Assumption.

For a time, the “Memory of Mary” was marked only in Palestine, but then it was extended by the emperor to all the churches of the East. In the seventh century, it began to be celebrated in Rome under the title of the “Falling Asleep” (“Dormitio”) of the Mother of God.

Soon the name was changed to the “Assumption of Mary,” since there was more to the feast than her dying. It also proclaimed that she had been taken up, body and soul, into heaven.

That belief was ancient, dating back to the apostles themselves. What was clear from the beginning was that there were no relics of Mary to be venerated, and that an empty tomb stood on the edge of Jerusalem near the site of her death. That location also soon became a place of pilgrimage. (Today, the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition of Mary stands on the spot.)

At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when bishops from throughout the Mediterranean world gathered in Constantinople, Emperor Marcian asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to bring the relics of Mary to Constantinople to be enshrined in the capitol. The patriarch explained to the emperor that there were no relics of Mary in Jerusalem, that “Mary had died in the presence of the apostles; but her tomb, when opened later . . . was found empty and so the apostles concluded that the body was taken up into heaven.”

In the eighth century, St. John Damascene was known for giving sermons at the holy places in Jerusalem. At the Tomb of Mary, he expressed the belief of the Church on the meaning of the feast: “Although the body was duly buried, it did not remain in the state of death, neither was it dissolved by decay. . . . You were transferred to your heavenly home, O Lady, Queen and Mother of God in truth.”

All the feast days of Mary mark the great mysteries of her life and her part in the work of redemption. The central mystery of her life and person is her divine motherhood, celebrated both at Christmas and a week later (Jan. 1) on the feast of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. The Immaculate Conception (Dec. marks the preparation for that motherhood, so that she had the fullness of grace from the first moment of her existence, completely untouched by sin. Her whole being throbbed with divine life from the very beginning, readying her for the exalted role of mother of the Savior.

The Assumption completes God’s work in her since it was not fitting that the flesh that had given life to God himself should ever undergo corruption. The Assumption is God’s crowning of His work as Mary ends her earthly life and enters eternity. The feast turns our eyes in that direction, where we will follow when our earthly life is over.

The feast days of the Church are not just the commemoration of historical events; they do not look only to the past. They look to the present and to the future and give us an insight into our own relationship with God. The Assumption looks to eternity and gives us hope that we, too, will follow Our Lady when our life is ended.

The prayer for the feast reads: “All-powerful and ever-living God: You raised the sinless Virgin Mary, mother of your Son, body and soul, to the glory of heaven. May we see heaven as our final goal and come to share her glory.”

Today is the solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary!

In 1950, in the Apostolic Constitution , Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Assumption of Mary a dogma of the Catholic Church in these words: “The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heaven.”

With that, an ancient belief became Catholic doctrine and the Assumption was declared a truth revealed by God.

Read more: http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/A/assumptionoftheblessedvirginmary.asp#ixzz1V75HIrvE

Entertainer Bob Jackson performed at the party.  Bob Jackson is a pianist, entertainer, comedian who has been featured at Walt Disney World for more than twelve years.   He is extraordinarily talented!

Please visit his website at Yehaa Bob.

Sandy, Mike, and entertainer Bob Jackson