Pope asks for prayers before Loreto visit

(Oct. 03, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI has asked for prayers for the success of important upcoming Church events which he will entrust to the Virgin Mary during a visit to Italy’s famous Marian shrine of Loreto on Thursday. “I ask you to join me in prayer to the Mother of God in recommending major ecclesial events that we are about to live. The Year of Faith and the Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization,” the Pope said during his weekly general audience in the Vatican on Wednesday. “May the Holy Virgin accompany the Church in her mission of proclaiming the Gospel to the men and women of our time,” he added. Pope Benedict’s Oct. 4th visit to Loreto is to commemorate a similar visit to the shrine the same day 50 years ago by Pope John XXIII to entrust to the Virgin Mary the Second Vatican Council which began a week later, on Oct. 11, 1962. Pope Benedict has visited shrine at least seven times as cardinal and once s Pope. The 85-year old Pope will inaugurate the Synod of Bishops in the Vatican on Sunday, Oct. 7, which will conclude on Oct. 28. Meanwhile, he will launch the Year of Faith on Oct. 11, the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and the twentieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Unlike Pope John XXIII, who travelled to Loreto by train 50 years ago, Pope Benedict will fly by helicopter to the shrine on the Adriatic coast. After his arrival there in the morning, the Holy Father will visit the Holy House, believed to be the house of Nazareth of the Virgin Mary, where he will spend time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and pray to the Virgin of Loreto. He will then celebrate Holy Mass in the square in front of the church.