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POPE-ANGELUS Jul-18-2005 (500 words) With photos. xxxi
Pope says body, soul can benefit from vacation, especially outdoors
By Catholic News Service
LES COMBES, Italy (CNS) -- Both body and soul can benefit from a relaxing, getaway vacation, especially one spent in the outdoors, Pope Benedict XVI said from an Alpine mountain retreat in northern Italy.
Vacation time with family and loved ones offers the opportunity to spend "more time dedicated to prayer, reading and meditation on the deep meaning of life," he said July 17 before praying the Sunday Angelus in Les Combes, in Italy's Valle d'Aosta region.
Because today's lifestyles, especially in hectic cities, "leave little room for silence, reflection and being in touch with nature," it has become "almost a necessity to be able to refortify one's body and spirit" with a relaxing vacation, said the pope.
Some 6,000 pilgrims gathered at the small mountain village to hear Pope Benedict pray the midday Angelus during his first extended vacation since he was elected pontiff April 19.
"After the first months of the demanding pastoral service that (God) has entrusted to me, this summer pause is a truly providential gift of God," he told the crowd.
Surrounded by fir trees and snow-tipped mountains, the pope said "vacation time offers the unique opportunity to take pause before nature's striking displays."
He said nature was like "a wonderful book," accessible to young and old. Being in touch with nature helps put things back in perspective; one "rediscovers oneself to be a small, but unique creature with a capacity for God," he said.
Pope Benedict said seeing the "stupendous mountains of the Valle d'Aosta" brought back vivid recollections of "my beloved predecessor John Paul II," who began the tradition of including an Alpine retreat during the summer holidays.
Pope Benedict was vacationing July 11-28 in an Alpine chalet owned by the Salesians.
Though fewer than 40 people reside in the rural area of Les Combes, the village teems with people -- pilgrims, tourists and journalists -- every summer that a pope visits for vacation. More than 200 Italian agents were reported to be providing security for the pope.
The pope reportedly was spending a large portion of his summer holiday writing and reading.
Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who was staying with the pope, said the pontiff was enjoying "a real holiday, but a working holiday." Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa said the pontiff was using the break to write a book.
Cardinal Bertone, who worked many years at the Congregation for the Doctrine for the Faith under then-Cardinal Ratzinger, visited the pope July 12 at Les Combes.
In an interview published July 15 by the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire, Cardinal Bertone said the pope's mornings were dedicated to prayer and the late afternoons to long walks.
The rest of the day, the pope spends working, "reading, studying" and "writing a book," he said.
Navarro-Valls added that the pope was also spending some time playing the piano. For the past several days "I have heard him play Mozart," the spokesman said July 18.
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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