Pope celebrates mass in 'great south land'
Papal address: Senior bishops sit and listen during the final World Youth Day mass (AAP: Dean Lewins)
ABC News
Posted 3 hours 35 minutes ago
Updated 24 minutes ago
Pope Benedict XVI has celebrated mass with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at the culmination of World Youth Day events in Sydney.
The 81-year-old pontiff was given a rapturous reception by hundreds of thousands of worshippers, many of whom slept out overnight at Randwick racecourse.
He said his trip to Australia had been an unforgettable experience but warned that a "spiritual desert" was spreading in the modern world.
"Here in Australia, this 'great south land of the Holy Spirit', all of us have had an unforgettable experience of the Spirit's presence and power in the beauty of nature," he said.
The Pope urged the young pilgrims who travelled to Australia from all over the world to become "messengers of love".
"The world needs this renewal," he said. "In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading, an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair."
Organisers said they expected up to 500,000 people to attend the mass, which ended with communion being offered to the crowd by 4,000 priests, acolytes and extraordinary ministers.
more...
posted by Dr. Denice Hanley, DPM, M.Div. @ 10:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home