Ordination Anniversary of Msgr. Gänswein and This Year's Assumption at Maria Vesperbild

This year, both personal secretaries to the Holy Father Monsignors Georg Gänswein and Alfred Xuereb, celebrate the 25th anniversary of their ordination to the priesthood (cf. Zenit article here). The occasion was marked by a special Mass celebrated in the private chapel of the Holy Father in the Apostolic Palace earlier this year, and Mgr. Xuereb celebrated his anniversary at his home parish of St George's basilica, Gozo, Malta, in July (cf. Times of Malta article here). This Sunday, Mgr. Gänswein, who also participated in the celebrations in Malta, celebrated his anniversary in his home parish of St. Leodegar in Riedern am Wald (Archdiocese of Freiburg, Germany). Here is a picture of the church:


Significantly, Mgr. Gänswein did not celebrate at the "people's altar", but at the original high altar, ad orientem, and in Latin. You can see this in this video clip (in German, no embedding possible), but only second hand from a video screen to which the Mass was transmitted live, since the church was too small for all the 1100 people who attended, and photography was not allowed inside the church itself. Here is a photograph as well:


(see picture galleries of the occasion here and here).

Update 26/8/2009: The video has now been captured by gloria.tv:

Attendants of the celebration included, besides the Monsignor's family (here he is with his mother)

the Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid as well as Mgr. Wilhelm Imkamp, Consultor to the Congregation for Divine Worship and rector of the pilgrimage church of Maria Vesperbild which has been repeatedly mentioned on the NLM (see e.g. last year's post about the Assumption in Maria Vesperbild with Archbishop Ranjith). Mgr. Imkamp preached at Mgr. Gänswein's ordination 25 years ago.


Mgr. Gänswein with Princess Thurn und Taxis and Mgr. Imkamp)

Speaking of Maria Vesperbild, this year's Assumption Mass was celebrated by the new Archbishop of Munich and Freising (in which see he is succesor to Pope Benedict), Most Rev. Reinhard Marx. As is customary at Maria Vesperbild, Archbishop Marx celebrated ad orientem, and in full pontifical vestments. The Augsburger Allgemeine has an image gallery, as does our friend Martin Bürger of exsultet.net. Here is a sample:





There also is full video available from katholisch.tv.

Images of Mgr. Gänswein's jubilee by Südkurier/Badische Zeitung.