Photo: REUTERS/Tony Gentile (VATICAN)

Worship Christ the Lord in your hearts: cultivate a personal relationship of love with him, your first and greatest love, one and totalizing, in which to live, purify, illumine and sanctify all your other relationships.

- Homily, 27 April 2008

The imposition of hands visually expresses the specific manner of this meeting: the Church, impersonated by the Bishop standing with extended hands, prays to the Holy Spirit to consecrate the candidate: the deacon, on his knees, receives the imposition of hands and entrusts himself to this mediation. Altogether these gestures are important but the invisible spiritual movement that they express is infinitely more important, a movement clearly evoked by the sacred silence that envelops everything, internal and external.

- Homily, 27 April 2008

It is a matter of only a few seconds, a very short time, but full of an extraordinary spiritual intensity.

- Homily, 27 April 2008

In order to be collaborators in the joy of others, in a world that is often sad and negative, the fire of the Gospel must burn within you and the joy of the Lord dwell in you. Only then will you be able to be messengers and multipliers of this joy, bringing it to all, especially to those who are sorrowful and disheartened.

- Homily, 27 April 2008

What can be greater, more exciting, than cooperating in spreading the Word of life in the world, than communicating the living water of the Holy Spirit? To proclaim and to witness joy: this is the central core of your mission, dear deacons who will soon become priests.

- Homily, 27 April 2008

In seeing the darkness that today threatens their lives, youth can find in the saints the light that dissipate it: the light of Christ, hope for all men.

- General Audience, 30 April 2008

God thirsts for our faith and wants us to find the source of our authentic happiness in him.

- Homily, 24 February 2008

In order to recognize God, we must give up the pride that dazzles us, that wants to drive us away from God as though God were our rival. To encounter God it is necessary to be able to see with the heart. We must learn to see with a child's heart, with a youthful heart not hampered by prejudices or blinded by interests. Thus, it is in the lowly who have such free and open hearts and recognize Jesus, that the Church sees her own image, the image of believers of all ages.

- Homily, 16 March 2008

God who created heaven and earth gave himself a name, made himself invocable; indeed, he made himself almost tangible to human beings. No place can contain him, yet for this very reason he gave himself a place and a name so that he, the true God, might be personally venerated as God in our midst.

- Homily, 16 March 2008

The locality of Emmaus has not been identified with certainty. There are various hypotheses and this one is not without an evocativeness of its own for it allows us to think that Emmaus actually represents every place: the road that leads there is the road every Christian, every person, takes. The Risen Jesus makes himself our travelling companion as we go on our way, to rekindle the warmth of faith and hope in our hearts and to break the bread of eternal life.

- Regina Coeli Address, 6 April 2008

Humanity's temptation is always to want to be totally autonomous, to follow its own will alone and to maintain that only in this way will we be free; that only thanks to a similarly unlimited freedom would man be completely man. But this is precisely how we pit ourselves against the truth.

- Homily, 20 March 2008

...when we continually encounter the sacred it risks becoming habitual for us. In this way, reverential fear is extinguished. Conditioned by all our habits we no longer perceive the great, new and surprising fact that he himself is present, speaks to us, gives himself to us. We must ceaselessly struggle against this becoming accustomed to the extraordinary reality, against the indifference of the heart, always recognizing our insufficiency anew and the grace that there is in the fact that he consigned himself into our hands. To serve means to draw near, but above all it also means obedience.

- Homily, 20 March 2008

If the liturgy is the central duty of the priest, this also means that prayer must be a primary reality, to be learned ever anew and ever more deeply at the school of Christ and of the Saints of all the ages.

- Homily, 20 March 2008

We must learn to increasingly understand the sacred liturgy in all its essence, to develop a living familiarity with it, so that it becomes the soul of our daily life.

- Homily, 20 March 2008

There are therefore two duties that define the essence of the priestly ministry: in the first place, "to stand in his [the Lord's] presence".

- Homily, 20 March 2008

We have to recognize that we sin, even in our new identity as baptized persons. We need confession in the form it has taken in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In it the Lord washes our dirty feet ever anew and we can be seated at table with him.

- Homily, 20 March 2008

Christianity is not a type of moralism, simply a system of ethics. It does not originate in our action, our moral capacity. Christianity is first and foremost a gift: God gives himself to us - he does not give something, but himself. And this does not only happen at the beginning, at the moment of our conversion. He constantly remains the One who gives. He continually offers us his gifts. He always precedes us.

- Homily, 20 March 2008

On the Cross, in giving himself, he is as it were fused and transformed into a new way of being, in which he is now always with the Father and contemporaneously with humankind. He transforms the Cross, the act of killing, into an act of giving, of love to the end.

- Homily, 20 March 2008

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[T]he Easter Candle is lit from the new fire as a symbol of Christ who rises again in glory.

- General Audience, 19 March 2008

To better the world, make an effort above all to change yourselves through an intense sacramental life, especially through approaching the sacrament of penance, and participating assiduously in the celebration of the Eucharist.

- General Audience, 19 March 2008

To be friends of Christ, and to give testimony of him wherever we are, demands, furthermore, the strength to go against the grain, remembering the words of the Lord: You are in the world but not of the world (cf. John 15:19).

- General Audience, 19 March 2008

The Christian knows that there is an inseparable link between the truth, ethics and responsibility. Every authentic cultural expression contributes to form the conscience and encourage the person to better himself with the end of bettering society. In this way one feels responsible before the truth, at the service of which one must put one's own personal liberty.

- General Audience, 19 March 2008

Today, the world needs priests, consecrated men and women and Christian married couples. To respond to your vocation through one of these ways, be generous, help yourselves by having recourse to the Sacrament of Confession and the practice of spiritual direction on your journey as consistent Christians. Seek in particular to sincerely open your heart to the Lord Jesus, to offer him your unconditional "yes".

- Homily, 13 March 2008

The Holy Spirit does not change the external but rather the internal situations of life.

- Homily, 13 March 2008

It is necessary to present to these young men the fascination of the Consecrated Life, the radicalism of following Christ, obedient, poor and chaste, the primacy of God and of the Spirit, fraternal life in community and total dedication to the mission. Young men are sensitive to suggestions of demanding commitment but need witnesses and guides who can accompany them in the discovery and acceptance of this gift.

- Letter to the 26th General Chapter of the Salesians

1 March 2008

Young people harbour a deep desire for a full life, for genuine love, for constructive freedom; but unfortunately, their expectations are often betrayed and come to nothing. It is indispensable to help the young to make the most of their inner resources, such as dynamism and positive aspirations; to put before them proposals that are rich in humanity and Gospel values; to urge them to integrate themselves into society as an active part of it through work and participation and commitment to the common good.

- Letter to the 26th General Chapter of the Salesians
1 March 2008

When one renounces everything to follow the Lord, when one gives to him all that one holds dearest, facing every sacrifice, one should not be surprised to become, as happened for the Divine Master, a "sign of contradiction", because the way a consecrated person thinks and acts often ends by clashing with the logic of the world. Actually, this is a cause of comfort since it testifies that the lifestyle of a consecrated person is an alternative to contemporary culture and that he can play a role in it which, in a certain way, is prophetic.

- Letter to the 26th General Chapter of the Salesians

1 March 2008

We must turn ever anew towards him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We must be converted ever anew, turning with our whole life towards the Lord. And ever anew we must withdraw our hearts from the force of gravity, which pulls them down, and inwardly we must raise them high: in truth and love.

- Homily, 23 March 2008

Darkness, at times, can seem comfortable. I can hide, and spend my life asleep. Yet we are not called to darkness, but to light.

- Homily, 23 March 2008

In Baptism he takes us, as it were, by the hand, he leads us along the path that passes through the Red Sea of this life and introduces us to everlasting life, the true and upright life. Let us grasp his hand firmly! Whatever may happen, whatever may befall us, let us not lose hold of his hand! Let us walk along the path that leads to life.

- Homily, 23 March 2008

Believers – the baptized – are never truly cut off from one another.

- Homily, 23 March 2008

This is the reality of Baptism: he, the Risen One, comes; he comes to you and joins his life with yours, drawing you into the open fire of his love. You become one, one with him, and thus one among yourselves.

- Homily, 23 March 2008

In Baptism, the Lord enters your life through the door of your heart. We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another.

- Homily, 23 March 2008

[L]et us direct our gaze today toward Christ. Let us pause to contemplate his Cross. The Cross is the source of immortal life, the school of justice and peace, the universal patrimony of pardon and mercy. It is permanent proof of an oblative and infinite love that brought God to become man, vulnerable like us, even to dying crucified.

- Address at the end of the Way of the Cross, 21 March 2008

Is it possible to remain indifferent before the death of God?

- Address at the end of the Way of the Cross, 21 March 2008

If with humble trust we draw near to him, we encounter in his gaze the response to the deepest longings of our heart: to know God and to establish with him a living relationship in an authentic communion of love, which can fill our lives, our interpersonal and social relations with that same love.

- Urbi et orbi Address, Easter 2008

In his glorious wounds we recognize the indestructible signs of the infinite mercy of the God...

- Urbi et orbi Address, Easter 2008

Fixing the gaze of our spirit on the glorious wounds of his transfigured body, we can understand the meaning and value of suffering, we can tend the many wounds that continue to disfigure humanity in our own day.

- Urbi et orbi Address, Easter 2008

It is only by walking with the Lord, by abandoning myself to his openness in the communion of the Church and not by living for myself - either for a happy earthly life or even only for personal bliss - but by making myself an instrument of his peace that I live well and learn this courage in the face of today's ever new and serious, sometimes almost impossible, challenges.

- Address to the Clergy of Rome, 7 February 2008

This is true Christian obedience, which is freedom: not as I want, with my own plan of life for myself, but in putting myself at his disposal so that he will make use of me. And in placing myself in his hands I am free. But it is a great leap that is never made once and for all.

- Address to the Clergy of Rome, 7 February 2008