The Pope’s new message

Photo by Alessia Giuliani/AFP/Getty

Take a break. Relax.

I was just thinking this morning how much I need a vacation, a retreat to nature, even a brief one. And then I saw this in the VIS release:

At midday today, Benedict XVI prayed the Angelus at the Castle of Mirabello, near the chalet where he is spending a holiday in the alpine locality of Lorenzago di Cadore, Italy.

Before the Marian prayer, the Pope addressed some words to the hundreds of people who had gathered to see him. “Before this panorama of fields, woods and peaks towering up to the sky,” he said, “we feel a spontaneous desire to praise God for the wonders of His work, and our admiration for such natural beauty is easily transformed into prayer.

“Each good Christian,” he added, “knows that holidays are an appropriate moment for physical relaxation, as well as for nourishing the spirit by giving greater space to prayer and mediation, in order to grow in our personal relationship with Christ and to adapt ourselves ever more to His teachings.”

I’m ready.