POPE BENEDICT XVI CELEBRATES HIS 85TH BIRTHDAY AND 7TH ANNIVERSARY AS HOLY FATHER............

Joseph Alois Ratzinger, the 265th Successor of St. Peter, the current Roman Pontiff, Pope Bebedict XVI, is celebrating his 85th Birthday today, Monday April 16th, and on Thursday April 19th, will commemorate the 7th Anniversary of his Election to the Chair of Peter.  Benedict XVI, is now the oldest Pope since Leo XIII, who lived to be 93, in 1903; and the current Holy Father is also only the sixth Pontiff in five hundred years to serve at age 85 or older.  Born on Holy Saturday 1927, in Germany,   Pope Benedict spent his birthday in, "a very Bavarian way", with a Bavarian band a number of his native citizens in the Vatican, including his brother Georg, who flew to Rome to be with him today.  Although well worn after the extensive Holy Week and Easter Liturgies, and a papal visit to Mexico and Cuba, all during the past three weeks; Pope Benedict XVI seems resolute as he enters the eighth year of his  pontificate to fulfill his responsibilities as Universal Shepherd of the Catholic-Christian Church.  As he himself said to former Cuban President Fidel Castro, in their meeting in Havana in late March, "Yes, I may be old, but I am still able to carry out my duties".  A sentiment and feeling, nearly thirty years the Pope's junior, I as a person strongly concur with during this indefinite pause in my ministry as a parish priest; believing age or health, do not diminish the the dignity, and integrity, of the human person or even the ability to adapt and carry out the duties of one's vocation............Praying with and for Pope Benedict XVI on his Birthday and Anniversary this week, Fr.  Troy