Pro Orantibus, Francis Edition

To mark today's feast of the Presentation of Mary – observed in the church since 1953 as a universal day of prayer for contemplative religious – just before 5pm Rome (11am ET), the Pope will head to Rome's monastery of Camaldolese Benedictine nuns to preside at Vespers and meet the cloistered community.

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Amid an unusually – at least, relatively – quiet spell in a pontificate whose breathers have been few and far between, today's stop begins a busy weekend set to climax with Sunday's outdoor closing Mass of the global Year of Faith, opened last October by B16 in token of the 50th anniversary of Vatican II.

In addition, Tuesday brings the rollout of Evangelii gaudium ("The joy of the Gospel") – the Apostolic Exhortation formally closing the October 2012 Synod for the New Evangelization, which B16 left as part of his unfinished business on Peter's chair.

The first magisterial text Francis will release on his own – the July encyclical Lumen fidei having been a product "of four hands" begun by his predecessor – the doc will be presented in the Holy See Press Office by three significant Curial figures: the head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, along with the heads of the ever-rising Synod of Bishops and the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, respectively Archbishops Lorenzo Baldisseri and Claudio Maria Celli.

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