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Pope Benedict Celebrates Vespers with Roman Students
18-12-2009
(18 Dec 09 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI prayed Vespers with Roman university students yesterday evening in St. Peter's Basilica:
Beginning with Vespers for the 17th of December, the Church enters fully into the final stage of preparation for Christmas - the Great and Solemn Feast of the Birth of Our Lord and Saviour.
Vespers are the Church's official Public Praise of God in the evening, and starting on the evening of December 17th, the Church prays the O Antiphons: seven invocations of the Messiah - the Christ - God's Chosen One, who will free Israel, break the power of Hell, and restore friendship between Heaven and Earth.
At the conclusion of the Vespers service, a delegation of students from Australia handed over an icon of Mary, Seat of Wisdom to a delegation of students from Africa, for whom the Holy Father especially prayed, as well as for the success of co-operation between Roman and African universities that has been growing since the conclusion of the Special Synod Assembly for Africa.
Pope Benedict's Homily on Thursday concentrated on the first of the seven O Antiphons: O Wisdom.
The Pope said the Wisdom invoked in the Church's Thursday Evening Prayer is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity; the Word, who, as we read in the Prologue to John's Gospel, "was in the beginning with God," indeed, "He was God," and with the Father and the Holy Spirit created all things and "became flesh" to reveal to us the God, whom no flesh can see.
"Dear Friends," said Pope Benedict, "A Christian professor, or a young Christian student, carries within him the passionate love for this Wisdom! We read all in its light: we discover its traces in the elementary particles and in the verses of poets; in the legal codes and the events of history; in works of art and in mathematical expressions.
Without Her, nothing was made of all that exists (cf. Jn 1:3) and thus can we see a reflection of Her in everything created.
All that human intelligence receives may be so received because, in some way and measure, it participates in creative Wisdom - and it is here, finally, that there rests the very possibility of study, of research, of scientific dialogue in every field of knowledge.
Dear friends, said Pope Benedict, "May this Christmas bring joy and hope to you, your families and the whole university community throughout the world.
http://www.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=343079
