Next Ascension Day, May 24th, 2009, the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI is going to visit the great Abbey of Montecassino, Italy, the cradle of the Benedictine Order founded by St Benedict himself in AD 529, and where he also died and is buried. As announced yesterday by the Abbot of Montecassino, dom Pietro Vittorelli, not only will the Holy Father sing Mass at the foot of the abbey in the morning, he will also celebrate Vespers in the Abbey Church. For this occasion, he has asked dom Pietro Vittorelli to call together all Benedictine Abbots and Abbesses of the world, to pray together at the tomb of St Benedict.
This will certainly be a momentous event in the life of the Benedictine Order, and since that order has always been so closely connected to the cultivation of the Sacred Liturgy, it is to be hoped that fruits in that direction will also come of it.
Source:
Il Messaggero via the
Papa Ratzinger blog.
