Yesterday morning I experienced my first papal mass, in Paris. Pope Benedict (or in french: Benoit) arrived in Paris on Friday and he is still here in France, today visiting Lourdes – a pilgrimage destination – where he drank the water from a spring that appeared from the ground 150 years ago when a local girl, named Bernadette Soubirous repeatedly had visions of the Virgin Mary. Though a papal mass is a bit beyond my french level it was still very interesting and I did get some of it.
He talked about the modern world and asked if we have not created our own idols in the modern world, which imitates the pagans of antiquity. He asked if money, the thirst for possesions, knowledge and power had not diverted man from his true destiny. This was also a major theme for his predecessor John Paul II, who worried that consumerism was turning into a kind of religion. Religious or not I think it’s important to reflect on the importance of material possessions and if they should be as important as they are to most people. More than 250.000 people attended the mass.
Later on Saturday Benedict XVI travelled to Lourdes as more than five million pilgrims do every year. Many of them hoping that drinking the water of the spring will cure them of their disease. The church has officially recognised 67 miracles linked to Lourdes.
Benedict told the pilgrims that by following in Bernadette’s footsteps they enter into an extraordinary closeness between heaven and earth. He likened the link between the heavenly and the terristial to a luminous path that opens up in human history even in its darkest moments. He referred to violence, war, terrorism and famine among the problems of man. Today, Sunday morning, the papal mass from Lourdes is being televised on France 2.
He talked about the modern world and asked if we have not created our own idols in the modern world, which imitates the pagans of antiquity. He asked if money, the thirst for possesions, knowledge and power had not diverted man from his true destiny. This was also a major theme for his predecessor John Paul II, who worried that consumerism was turning into a kind of religion. Religious or not I think it’s important to reflect on the importance of material possessions and if they should be as important as they are to most people. More than 250.000 people attended the mass.
Later on Saturday Benedict XVI travelled to Lourdes as more than five million pilgrims do every year. Many of them hoping that drinking the water of the spring will cure them of their disease. The church has officially recognised 67 miracles linked to Lourdes.
Benedict told the pilgrims that by following in Bernadette’s footsteps they enter into an extraordinary closeness between heaven and earth. He likened the link between the heavenly and the terristial to a luminous path that opens up in human history even in its darkest moments. He referred to violence, war, terrorism and famine among the problems of man. Today, Sunday morning, the papal mass from Lourdes is being televised on France 2.
