Photo: David Ryan, Boston GlobeSorry if the previous post was too much of a bummer. And it's the feast of the Annunciation --a celebration of innocence. Sometimes I think WaPo runs these things on feast days just to bring me down. Anyway, here's a face to wipe out the memory of tarted up little girls. I filched it from Whispers in the Loggia, where you must visit to see wonderful photos of the consistory yesterday. Just go there, scroll to the bottum and work your way up. Or if you're too lazy (sorry: time-constrained) at least look at this and this.
Here's the Pope's homily for today's "mass of the rings" --concelebrated with the new Cardinals. He addresses the Annunciation mostly:
Saint Augustine imagines a dialogue between himself and the Angel of the Annunciation, in which he asks: "Tell me, O Angel, why did this happen in Mary?" The answer, says the Messenger, is contained in the very words of the greeting: "Hail, full of grace" (cf. Sermo 291:6). In fact, the Angel, "appearing to her", does not call her by her earthly name, Mary, but by her divine name, as she has always been seen and characterized by God: "Full of grace - gratia plena", which in the original Greek is [ . . .] "beloved" (cf. Lk 1:28). Origen observes that no such title had ever been given to a human being, and that it is unparalleled in all of Sacred Scripture (cf. In Lucam 6:7). It is a title expressed in passive form, but this "passivity" of Mary, who has always been and is for ever "loved" by the Lord, implies her free consent, her personal and original response: in being loved, Mary is fully active, because she accepts with personal generosity the wave of God’s love poured out upon her. In this too, she is the perfect disciple of her Son, who realizes the fullness of his freedom through obedience to the Father.
Here's the homily for the consistory mass yesterday.
