18 October 2008

Only Christ is the true hope of man; only entrusting the human heart to Him can it open up to love that overcomes hate.

- Homily, 9 October 2008
It is precisely this generous path that was taken by those who we are venerating today as Saints. In Baptism they received the wedding garment of divine grace, they kept it clean and purified it and made it radiant during their life through the Sacraments. They are now taking part in the wedding feast in Heaven. The banquet of the Eucharist is an anticipation of the final feast in Heaven, to which the Lord invites us every day and in which we must take part, clothed in the wedding garment of his grace. Should it happen that we soil or even tear this garment with sin, God's goodness does not reject or abandon us to our destiny but rather offers us, with the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the possibility of restoring the wedding garment to the pristine state required for the feast.

- Homily, 12 October 2008
This is what happened in the Paschal Mystery: The power of evil was defeated by the omnipotence of God's love.

- Homily, 12 October 2008
Only with the heart is one able to truly know a person.

- General Audience, 8 October 2008
Christianity is not a new philosophy or a new morality. We are only Christians if we encounter Christ.

- General Audience, 3 September 2008
In the ancient Church Baptism was also called "illumination", because this Sacrament gives light; it truly makes one see.

- General Audience, 3 September 2008
The average reader may be tempted to linger too long on certain details, such as the light in the sky, falling to the ground, the voice that called him, his new condition of blindness, his healing like scales falling from his eyes and the fast that he made. But all these details refer to the heart of the event: the Risen Christ appears as a brilliant light and speaks to Saul, transforms his thinking and his entire life. The dazzling radiance of the Risen Christ blinds him; thus what was his inner reality is also outwardly apparent, his blindness to the truth, to the light that is Christ. And then his definitive "yes" to Christ in Baptism restores his sight and makes him really see.

- General Audience, 3 September 2008