- Angelus Address, 10 February 2013
14 February 2013
It is the work of God. The human person is not the author of his own vocation
but responds to the divine call. Human weakness should not be afraid if God
calls. It is necessary to have confidence in his strength, which acts in our
poverty; we must rely more and more on the power of his mercy, which transforms
and renews
- Angelus Address, 10 February 2013
13 January 2013
Advent invites us to retrace the journey of this presence and reminds us over and over again that God did not take himself away from the world, he is not absent, he has not left us to ourselves, but comes to meet our needs in various ways that we must learn to discern.
- General Wednesday Audience, 12 December 2012
Faith is nourished by the discovery and memory of the ever faithful God who guides history and constitutes the sound and permanent foundation on which to build our life.
- General Wednesday Audience, 12 December 2012
I would like — once again — to invite everyone, in this Year of Faith, to open the Bible more often, to hold, read and meditate on it and to pay greater attention to the Readings of Sunday Mass; all this is precious nourishment for our faith.
- General Wednesday Audience, 12 December 2012
What illuminates and gives full meaning to the history of the world and of man begins to shine out in the Bethlehem Grotto; it is the Mystery which, in a little while, we shall be contemplating at Christmas: salvation, brought about in Jesus Christ. In Jesus of Nazareth God shows his face and asks man to choose to recognize and follow him.
- General Audience Address, 12 December 2012
God makes himself a man like us to give us a hope that is sure: if we follow him, if we are consistent in living our Christian life, he will draw us to him, he will lead us to communion with him; and there will be in our hearts true joy and true peace, even in difficulty, even in moments of weakness.
- Homily, 16 December 2012
We must rejoice in his closeness, in his presence, and must seek ever better to understand that he really is close, and thus be penetrated by the reality of God’s goodness, joy at Christ being with us.
- Homily, 16 December 2012
This is a great cause for joy: knowing that it is always possible to pray to the Lord and that the Lord hears us, that God is not distant, but really listens, he knows us; and knowing that he never rejects our prayers even if he does not always answer as we would like, but that he does answer.
- Homily, 16 December 2012
Sin alone can distance us from him, but this is a factor of separation that we ourselves introduce into our relationship with the Lord. Yet, even when we cut ourselves adrift, he does not cease to love us and continues to be close with his mercy, with his readiness to forgive and to embrace us in his love.
- Homily, 16 December 2012
Thus God rejoices in us and we can attain joy: God exists, God is good and God is close.
- Homily, December 16, 2012
09 January 2013
What illuminates and gives full meaning to the history of the world and of man begins to shine out in the Bethlehem Grotto; it is the Mystery which, in a little while, we shall be contemplating at Christmas: salvation, brought about in Jesus Christ. In Jesus of Nazareth God shows his face and asks man to choose to recognize and follow him.
12 December 2012
14 September 2012
One thing, one hope is certain: God expects us, waits for us, we do not go out into a void, we are expected. God is expecting us and on going to that other world we find the goodness of the Mother, we find our loved ones, we find eternal Love. God is waiting for us: this is our great joy and the great hope that is born from this Feast. Mary visits us, and she is the joy of our life and joy is hope.
- Homily, 15 August 2012
What is certain is that a world which distances itself from God does not become better but worse. Only God’s presence can guarantee a good world. Let us leave it at that.
- Homily , 15 August 2012
In the faith we open the doors of our existence so that God may enter us, so that God can be the power that gives life and a path to our existence. In us there is room, let us open ourselves like Mary opened herself, saying: “Let your will be done, I am the servant of the Lord”. By opening ourselves to God, we lose nothing. On the contrary, our life becomes rich and great.
- Homily, 15 August 2012
Mary, totally united to God, has a heart so big that all creation can enter this heart, and the ex-votos in every part of the earth show it. Mary is close, she can hear us, she can help us, she is close to everyone of us. In God there is room for man and God is close, and Mary, united to God, is very close; she has a heart as great as the heart of God.
- Homily, 15 August 2012
In the Assumption we see that in God there is room for man, God himself is the house with many rooms of which Jesus speaks (cf. Jn 14:2); God is man’s home, in God there is God’s space. And Mary, by uniting herself, united to God, does not distance herself from us. She does not go to an unknown galaxy, but whoever approaches God comes closer, for God is close to us all; and Mary, united to God, shares in the presence of God, is so close to us, to each one of us.
- Homily, 15 August 2012
God created us out of love in order to be able to give us life in its fullness; but this goal, this life in fullness, has as it were become distant because of sin - we all know it - and only God's grace can make it accessible.
- General Audience, 1 August 2012
It is not a matter here of following an idea or a project, but of encountering Jesus as a living Person, of letting ourselves be totally involved by him and by his Gospel.
- Angelus Address, 5 August 2012
The centre of existence - which is what gives meaning and certain hope in the all too often difficult journey of life - is faith in Jesus, it is the encounter with Christ.
- Angelus Address, 5 August 2012
Are not Christian communion and witness grounded in the Paschal Mystery, in the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ? Is it not there that they find their fulfilment? There is an inseparable bond between the cross and the resurrection which Christians must never forget. Without this bond, to exalt the cross would mean to justify suffering and death, seeing them merely as our inevitable fate. For Christians, to exalt the cross means to be united to the totality of God’s unconditional love for mankind. It means making an act of faith! To exalt the cross, against the backdrop of the resurrection, means to desire to experience and to show the totality of this love. It means making an act of love! To exalt the cross means to be a committed herald of fraternal and ecclesial communion, the source of authentic Christian witness. It means making an act of hope!
13 March 2012
The new evangelization, thus, also begins in the confessional! It begins, that is, from the meeting between man’s inexhaustible plea, the sign of mystery of creation in him, and God’s mercy, the only adequate response to the human need of the infinite. If the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation will be this, if in it the faithful will really experience that mercy that Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Christ, has bestowed upon us, then they themselves will become credible witnesses of that sanctity, which is the goal of the new evangelization.
9 March 2012
The certainty that he is near and that in his mercy he assists man, even when he is in sin, to heal his infirmities with the grace of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, is always a light of hope for the world.
- Address to Participants in a Course Sponsored by the Apostolic Penitentiary
9 March 2012
01 March 2012
The Church’s defense of a moral reasoning based on the natural law is grounded
on her conviction that this law is not a threat to our freedom, but rather a
“language” which enables us to understand ourselves and the truth of our being,
and so to shape a more just and humane world. She thus proposes her moral
teaching as a message not of constraint but of liberation, and as the basis for
building a secure future.
The Church’s witness, then, is of its nature public: she seeks to
convince by proposing rational arguments in the public square. The legitimate
separation of Church and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be
silent on certain issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be
engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which
will shape the future of the nation.
In the light of these considerations, it is imperative that the
entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats
to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which
finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The
seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of
ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit
that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.
19 January 2012
28 February 2012
It is in accord with this salvific perspective that the verse of Genesis is taken up by the Ash Wednesday liturgy: as an invitation to penance, to humility and to an awareness of our mortal condition, but not to end up in desperation, but rather to welcome, precisely in this mortality of ours, God's unthinkable nearness, which, beyond death, opens the passage to the resurrection, to paradise finally rediscovered.
- Homily
22 February 2012
In the family, which guards usages, traditions, customs, rites permeated by faith, the most adequate terrain is found for the flowering of vocations. Today's consumerist mentality can have negative repercussions on the awakening and care of vocations; hence the need to pay particular attention to the promotion of priestly vocations and special consecrations. The family is also the formative fulcrum of youth.
16 February 2012
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