Cardinal Rigali, former papal chamberlain to His Holiness Paul VI and Archbishop of St. Louis, currently serves as the Archbishop of Philadelphia. He is a member of the Committee on Diving Worship, the Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of Scripture Translations and is President of the Board of Directors of the Black and Indian Mission Office. His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Rigali a member of the Vatican Congregation for Bishops in September 2007. The Cardinal is also member of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. He is also a member of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See. The Cardinal is on the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University of America. He is also on the Board of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. and the Chair of the Iconography Committee.
The mystery which we gather to reflect upon today is at once timely and timeless. Timely, because as Aimé-Georges Martimort has noted, “In our day the faithful have greater difficulty in achieving prayerful recollection and a sense of God’s presence.”