A Beggar for Love

In the Saints we see the victory of love over selfishness and death: we see that following Christ leads to life, eternal life, and gives me...

In fact, being united to Christ, in the Church, does not negate one's personality, but opens it, transforms it with the power of love, ...

Dear friends, our time needs Christians who have been grasped by Christ, who grow in faith through their familiarity with Sacred Scripture ...

Faith is a gift of God, but it is also a profoundly free and human act. - General Audience Address , 24 October 2012

The profession of faith above all is not something to be understood, something intellectual, something to be memorized — this too of course...

Consequently we switch to the first renunciation: “Do you reject sin so as to live in the freedom of God’s children?”. Today freedom and C...

The Sacrament of Baptism is not an act that lasts an hour. Rather it is a reality of our whole life, a journey of our whole life. - Lect...

Christianity is not something purely spiritual, something only subjective, emotional, of the will, of ideas; it is a cosmic reality. God i...

This means that with Baptism, with immersion in the name of God, we too are already immersed in immortal life, we are alive for ever. In ot...

To be baptized is never a solitary act by “me”; it is always, necessarily, being united with all the others, being in unity and solidarity...

Becoming Christian is not something that follows a decision of mine: “herewith I make myself a Christian”. Of course, my decision is also ...

But how should we Christians respond to the question of death? We respond with faith in God, with a gaze of firm hope founded on the death ...

If the love of God has planted deep roots in a person, then he is able to love even those who do not deserve it, as God does us. Fathers an...

All our preaching must measure itself against the saying of Jesus Christ: “My teaching is not mine” (Jn 7:16). We preach not private theor...

The right to freedom of religion, both in its private and in its public dimension, manifests the unity of the human person, who is at on...

The disciple of Jesus does not respond to evil with evil, but is always an instrument of good instead, a herald of pardon, a bearer of h...

God wants us to be happy always. He knows us and he loves us. If we allow the love of Christ to change our heart, then we can change the w...

A yearning for joy lurks within the heart of every man and woman. Far more than immediate and fleeting feelings of satisfaction, our hea...

The Church’s vocation is to bring joy to the world, a joy that is authentic and enduring, the joy proclaimed by the angels to the shepher...

The faith handed down from the Apostles leads to complete freedom and joy... - Meeting with Young People , 15 September 2012

Only forgiveness, given and received, can lay lasting foundations for reconciliation and universal peace (cf. Rom 12:16b, 18). - Address...

Our human dignity is inseparable from the sacredness of life as the gift of the Creator. In God’s plan, each person is unique and irreplace...

It is here and now that we are called to celebrate the victory of love over hate, forgiveness over revenge, service over domination, humili...

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 fa...

I am simply a pilgrim beginning the last leg of his pilgrimage on this earth. - Address at Castel Gandalfo, 28 February 2013

Christ reigns from the Cross and, with his arms open wide, he embraces all the peoples of the world and draws them into unity. - Homily...

It is the crucified and glorious face of Christ which ought to guide us, so that we may witness to his love for the world. - Address to ...

What, then, is prayer? It is a cry of love directed to God our Father, with the will to imitate Jesus our brother. Jesus often went off by ...

The journey to the Grotto of Bethlehem is a journey of inner liberation, an experience of profound freedom, because it impels us to come ou...

Peace is a gift of God and at the same time a task which is never fully completed.  - Message for the 44th World Day of Peace

Precisely for this reason, the laws and institutions of a society cannot be shaped in such a way as to ignore the religious dimension of it...

States and the various human communities must never forget that religious freedom is the condition for the pursuit of truth, and truth doe...

  Freedom without relationship is not full freedom. - Message for the 44th World Day of Peace

The family founded on marriage, as the expression of the close union and complementarity between a man and a woman, finds its place here as...

Religious freedom should be understood, then, not merely as immunity from coercion, but even more fundamentally as an ability to order one...

Respect for essential elements of human dignity, such as the right to life and the right to religious freedom, is a condition for the mora...

Without the acknowledgement of his spiritual being, without openness to the transcendent, the human person withdraws within himself, fails...

Religious freedom expresses what is unique about the human person, for it allows us to direct our personal and social life to God, in whose...

Lord Jesus, who wanted to be born as the first of many brothers and sisters, grant us the grace of true brotherhood.  Help us to become lik...

God knows us in our inmost depths, better than we ourselves, and loves us; and knowing this must suffice. - General Audience Address ,...

Yet God’s silence, as happened to Jesus, does not indicate his absence. Christians know well that the Lord is present and listens, even i...

Silence can carve out an inner space in our very depths to enable God to dwell there, so that his word will remain within us and love for...

Only in silence can the word of God find a home in us, as it did in Mary, woman of the word and, inseparably, woman of silence” ( n. 66 )...

Inward and outward silence are necessary if we are to be able to hear this word. - General Audience Address , 7 March 2012

The Cross of Christ does not only demonstrate Jesus’ silence as his last word to the Father but reveals that God also speaks through sile...

Jesus’ experience on the cross profoundly reveals the situation of the person praying and the culmination of his prayer: having heard and ...

True faith in God, then, is inseparable from personal holiness, just as it is from the search for justice. - Homily , 25 January 201...

Unity, in fact, is given by God as inseparable from faith... - Homily , 25 January 2013

Faith needs to be strengthened through teaching , so that it can enlighten the minds and hearts of believers. - Fides per Doctr...

It is only in opening oneself to God’s truth, in fact, that it is possible to understand and achieve in the concrete reality of both c...

It is our smallness, our frail human nature that becomes an appeal to the Lord’s mercy, that he may show his greatness and tenderness as a ...

And humility is precisely the door to every virtue. - Address , 13 May 2012

The continuous meditation on the Cross, in this holy place, has been a means of sanctification for many Christians, who, throughout eight ...

It may be said that the impulse of scientific research itself stems from the longing for God that dwells in the human heart: basically, sc...

Science and faith have a fruitful reciprocity, an almost complementary need for understanding the real. - Address , 3 May 2012

...it is not merely a question of conferring an office as happens in a public organization, but is an ecclesial event in which the Holy Sp...

Dear friends, today too the Risen One enters our homes and our hearts, even when, at times, the doors are closed. He enters giving joy and ...

...Jesus shows the disciples the wounds in his hands and in his side (cf. Jn 20:20), signs of what has occurred and will never be cancelled...

Christian worship is not only a commemoration of past events nor even a specific, inner mystical experience; rather, it is essentially an ...

God always asks for our free adherence to faith, that it is expressed in love for him and for our neighbour. No one is so poor...

Indeed, if faith is always born from listening to the word of God — a form of listening, naturally, not only of the senses but that also p...

...work is not only an instrument for individual profit but a moment in which we express our abilities by spending ourselves, in a spirit ...

Violence is never useful to humanity but dehumanizes it. - Angelus Address , 11 March 2012

The eyes of the heart must be turned to the Lord, who is in our midst: this is a fundamental disposition. - General Audience Address , ...

 The conviction must grow within us every day that the liturgy is not our or my “doing” but rather is an action of God in us and with us. ...

The Christian liturgy is the worship of the universal temple which is the Risen Christ, whose arms are outstretched on the Cross to draw ...

Finding one’s identity in Christ means reaching communion with him, that does not wipe me out but raises me to the loftiest dignity, that ...

Christian prayer consists in looking constantly at Christ and in an ever new way, speaking to him, being with him in silence, listening to...

Therefore the life of prayer consists in being habitually in God’s presence and being aware of it, in living in a relationship with God as ...

Many people today have a limited idea of the Christian faith, because they identify it with a mere system of beliefs and values rather than...

Yet God never tires of seeking us, he is faithful to the human being whom he created and redeemed, he stays close to us in our life because...

When life becomes frail, in the years of old age, it never loses its value and its dignity: each one of us, at any stage of life, is wante...

At every phase of life it is necessary to be able to discover the presence and blessing of the Lord and the riches they bring. We must nev...

Contact with offenders paying the price for what they have done and the commitment needed to restore dignity and hope to people who in ma...

 ...it is necessary that in punishing them, everything possible be done to correct and improve them. When this does not happen, justice is...

The prisoner’s personal need to undergo in prison a process of rehabilitation and maturation is actually a need of society itself, both be...

Christians often do not even know the central core of their own Catholic faith, the Creed, so that they leave room for a certain syncretism...

Allow the fascination of his person to capture your imagination and warm your heart. He has chosen you to be his friends, not his servants,...

...one of the most serious problems of our time is ignorance of religious practice in which many men and women live, including some Catholi...

Saying “I believe in God” means founding my life on him, letting his Word guide it every day, in practical decisions, without fear of losi...

Only true friendship with God will break the bonds of loneliness from which our fragile humanity suffers and will establish a true and las...

Do not forget, however, that the family is the primary means for transmitting the faith, that small domestic Church called to make Jesus a...

Do not forget, however, that the family is the primary means for transmitting the faith, that small domestic Church called to make Jesus a...

Believing means entrusting one’s life to the One who alone can give it fullness in time and open it to a hope beyond time. - Homily , 1...

Believing means entrusting one’s life to the One who alone can give it fullness in time and open it to a hope beyond time. - Homily , 1...

It is the Easter joy that does not stay silent or conceal the realities of pain, of suffering, of effort, of difficulty, of incomprehension...

We must return to God, so that man may return to being man. - Homily , 4 October 2012

There is a clear link between the crisis in faith and the crisis in marriage. - Homily , 7 October 2012

Marriage, as a union of faithful and indissoluble love, is based upon the grace that comes from the triune God, who in Christ loved us with...

The Church exists to evangelize. - Homily , 7 October 2012

In every time and place, evangelization always has as its starting and finishing points Jesus Christ, the Son of God (cf. Mk 1:1); and the...

Those who advocate research on embryonic stem cells in the hope of achieving such a result make the grave mistake of denying the inalienab...

Every person, whether man or woman, is destined to exist for others. A relationship that fails to respect the fact that men and women have...

A society is truly human when without reservations it protects and respects the dignity of every person from conception until the moment o...

...discover in volunteer work a way to grow in the self-giving love which gives life its deepest meaning. Young people readily react to t...

...your role as Christians is to take an active part in the life of society, seeking to make it ever more humane, ever more marked by aut...

The little that we manage to do to relieve human needs can be seen as a good seed that will grow and bear much fruit; it is a sign of Chr...

We also become visible instruments of his love in a world that still profoundly yearns for that love amid the poverty, loneliness, margina...

Christ’s grace helps us to discover within ourselves a human desire for solidarity and a fundamental vocation to love. His grace perfects, ...

It is only by practicing charity that we too will be able to share in the joy of Our Lord. - Angelus Address , 13 November 2011

Charity is the fundamental good that no one can fail to bring to fruition and without which every other good is worthless ...

Death, followed by the Last Judgement, is an obligatory stage to pass through in order to reach this definitive reality. - Angelus Addre...

Man needs eternity for every other hope is too brief, too limited for him. Man can be explained only if there is a Love which overcomes ev...

The role of education cannot, in fact, be reduced to the mere transmission of knowledge and skills that aim to form a professional but mus...

The Church hopes that the State, in its turn, will recognize that a healthy secularism must not view religion, simply as an individual sen...

It is important for everyone, in fact, to learn ever better how to “remain” with the Lord daily in personal encounters to allow his love t...

We must never forget — as priests — that the only legitimate ascent to the ministry of the pastor is not that of success, but of the Cros...

One should never forget that one comes into the priesthood through the Sacrament of Orders and this means exactly opening oneself to the ...

Therefore the Gospel minister is the one who lets himself be seized by Christ, who knows how to “stay” with him, who enters into harmony, ...

First, in the call to the priestly ministry we meet Jesus and are drawn to him, struck by his words, his actions, and his person. It is to ...

True wisdom is making the most of mortal life in order to do works of mercy, for after death this will no longer be pos...

If we remove God, we remove Christ and the world falls back into emptiness and darkness. - Angelus Address , 6 November 20...

In our giving too it does not matter whether or not a gift is expensive; those who cannot manage to give a little of themselves al...

Justice is achieved only when people are just! - Address , 7 January 2013

It is precisely man's forgetfulness of God, and his failure to give him glory, which gives rise to violence. - Address , 7 January 20...

For faith is nothing less than being interiorly seized by God, something which guides us along the pathways of life.  Faith draws us into a ...

Human beings have an innate restlessness for God, but this restlessness is a participation in God's own restlessness for us. - Homily...

It is the task of the Bishop in this pilgrimage not merely to walk beside the others, but to go before them, showing the way. - Homily , ...

The faster we can move, the more efficient our time-saving appliances become, the less time we have. And God? The question of God never se...

The flight from responsibility, which degrades human persons, and even more so the killing of a defenceless and innocent being, will never ...

Life in its fullness is the height of peace. Anyone who loves peace cannot tolerate attacks and crimes against life. - Message for the W...

The precondition for peace is the dismantling of the dictatorship of relativism and of the supposition of a completely autonomous morality w...

Today Christians are called to be witnesses of prayer precisely because our world is often closed to the divine horizon and to the...

Prayer is of course is a gift which nevertheless asks to be accepted; it is a work of God but demands commitment and continuity on...

In our prayer too we must learn, increasingly, to enter this history of salvation of which Jesus is the summit, to renew before God our pers...

Humanity does not only need benefactors but also humble, practical people who, like Jesus, are able to stand beside their brethren, sharing ...

It is important that suffering people be able to feel God's warmth and that they feel it through our hands and our open-hardheartedness....

This is the badge of Christians: faith which becomes active in charity.  Each one of you is called to make your own contributions so that th...

Responding to needs not only means giving bread to the hungry; it also means letting oneself be challenged by the reasons causing their hung...

The Church expects much of you, of your enthusiasm, of your capacity for looking ahead and of your desire for radicalism in life's decis...

All must be able to find in the parish an adequate means of formation and must be able to experience that community dimension which is a f...

 Patience and constancy are truly a synthesis between human commitment and confidence in God. - Angelus Address , 12 December 2010

Advent calls us to develop inner tenacity, resistance of the spirit, which enables us not to despair while waiting for a good that is slow ...

Even when difficulties arise in conjugal life and in the relationship with their children, married couples must never cease to stay faithfu...

No community can live as a cell isolated from the diocesan context; instead the community must be a living expression of the beauty of the ...

Advent is a strong invitation to everyone to let God come increasingly into our lives, our houses, our neighborhoods and our communities in ...

Lord, help me to come to know you more and more.  Help me to be ever more at one with your will.  Help me to live my life not for myself, bu...

Faith starts with God, who opens his heart to us and invites us to share in his own divine life.  Faith does not simply provide information ...

...we cannot make the Church, we can only announce what he [Christ] has done.  The Church does not begin with our "making", but wi...

The Christian must not be lukewarm. - Meditation for the Synod of Bishops 8 October 2012