January 30 ,2013: Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to lead a full slate of Holy Week
and Easter liturgies in Rome and at the Vatican. Publishing the pope's schedule on
Tuesday (Jan. 29), the Vatican said his Holy Week activities will begin with a procession
and Mass in St. Peter's Square on Palm Sunday, March 24. Pope Benedict will celebrate
a morning chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on Holy Thursday, and the same evening
will preside over the Mass of the Lord's Supper in Rome's Basilica of St. John Lateran.
On Good Friday, he will celebrate the liturgy of the Lord's Passion in St. Peter's
Basilica in the late afternoon, and then will lead a night-time Way of the Cross at
Rome's Colosseum. As a way to recall his 2012 visit to Lebanon and invite the whole
church to pray for peace in the Middle East, the meditations read during the Way
of the Cross will be written by two young Lebanese. Each year, the pope asks a different
person to write the meditations, and this year he asked Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch
Bechara Rai to choose the youths and guide their preparation of the texts. On
Holy Saturday, the pope will preside over the Easter Vigil in St. Peter's Basilica.
On Easter, Sunday,March 31, he will celebrate Mass in St. Peter's Square and give
his blessing "urbi et orbi" (to the city of Rome and the world). The Vatican also
released the pope's Lenten schedule. He will celebrate Mass at Rome's Basilica of
Santa Sabina on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 13, and begin his weeklong spiritual retreat Feb.
17. Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture,
will preach the papal retreat this year. The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano,
said the cardinal will focus on "Ars orandi, ars credendi" (the art of praying, the
art of believing), looking particularly at "the face of God and the face of man in
the Psalm prayers." The pope's February schedule begins with a Mass Feb. 2 with men
and women religious in St. Peter's Basilica to mark the feast of the Presentation
of the Lord and World Day for Consecrated Life. On Feb. 11, the pope will lead
a brief "ordinary public consistory," a formal ceremony opened and closed with prayer,
during which cardinals present in Rome will express their support for the pope's decision
to create several new saints.