- Angelus Address, 1 November 2012
02 July 2015
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 meaning
to the present, every moment that passes, because it is filled with
love and hope. Only faith in eternal life makes us truly love history
and the present, but without attachment, with the freedom of the
pilgrim, who loves the earth because his heart is set on Heaven.
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, and
confers on it, already here on earth, an eternal dimension.
- Angelus Address, 1 November 2012
Dear friends, our time needs Christians who have been grasped by Christ,
who grow in faith through their familiarity with Sacred Scripture and
the sacraments. People who are, as it were, an open book that tells of
the experience of new life in the Spirit, of the presence of that God
who supports us on our way and opens us to everlasting life.
- General Audience Address, 24 October 2012
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 —
it also touches our mind, it especially touches our life.
And to me this seems very important. It is not an intellectual thing,
a pure formula. It is a dialogue of God with us, an action of God with
us, it is a response of ours, it is a journey. The truth of Christ may
be understood only if his journey is understood. Only if we accept
Christ as the way do we really set out on the way of Christ and can
understand the truth of Christ. Truth that is not lived does not open;
only truth lived, truth accepted as a way of life, as a path, also opens
as truth in its full riches and depth. This formula is thus a way, it
is an expression of our conversion, of an action of God.
- Lectio Divina, 11 June 2012
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
Christian life, the observance of God's commandments, go in opposite
directions; being Christian is like a form of slavery; freedom is being
emancipated from the Christian faith, emancipated — all things
considered — from God. To many people the word “sin” seems almost
ridiculous, because they say: “How can that be! We cannot offend God!
God is so great, what does it matter to God if I make a small mistake?
We cannot offend God, his concern for us is too great for us to offend
him”.
This seems true but it is not true. God made himself vulnerable. In the crucified Christ we see that God is vulnerability, God’s love is his caring for man, God’s love means that our first concern must not be to hurt or destroy his love, not to do anything against his love for otherwise we also live against ourselves and against our freedom. And, in reality, this seeming liberty in emancipation from God immediately becomes a slavery of the many dictatorships of the time, that require guidance if they are to be deemed worthy of the time.
This seems true but it is not true. God made himself vulnerable. In the crucified Christ we see that God is vulnerability, God’s love is his caring for man, God’s love means that our first concern must not be to hurt or destroy his love, not to do anything against his love for otherwise we also live against ourselves and against our freedom. And, in reality, this seeming liberty in emancipation from God immediately becomes a slavery of the many dictatorships of the time, that require guidance if they are to be deemed worthy of the time.
- Lectio Divina, 11 June 2012
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.
- Lectio Divina, 11 June 2012
Christianity is not something purely spiritual, something only
subjective, emotional, of the will, of ideas; it is a cosmic reality.
God is the Creator of all matter, matter enters Christianity, and it is
only in this great context of matter and spirit together that we are
Christians. It is therefore very important that matter be part of our
faith, that the body be part of our faith; faith is not purely
spiritual, but this is how God inserts us into the whole reality of the
cosmos and transforms the cosmos, draws it to himself.
- Lectio Divina, 11 June 2012
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 other
words Baptism is a first stage in resurrection: immersed in God, we are
already immersed in the indestructible life, our resurrection begins.
Just as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob being the “name of God” are alive, so
we, inserted in the name of God, are alive in immortal life. Baptism is
the first step of resurrection, entry into the indestructible life of
God.
- Lectio Divina, 11 June 2012
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 with the whole Body of Christ, with the whole community of
his brothers and sisters. This event which is Baptism inserts me in
community, breaks my isolation. We must bear this in mind in our being
Christian.
- Lectio Divina, 11 June 2012
Becoming Christian is not something that follows a decision of mine:
“herewith I make myself a Christian”. Of course, my decision is also
necessary, but first of all it is an action of God with me: it is not I
who make myself Christian. I am taken on by God, taken in hand by God
and thus, by saying “yes” to God’s action I become Christian. Becoming
Christians, in a certain sense is passive; I do not make myself
Christian but God makes me his man, God takes me in hand and puts my
life in a new dimension. Likewise I do not make myself live but life is
given to me; I am not born because I have made myself a human being, but
I am born because I have been granted to be human. Therefore my
Christian being has also been granted to me, it is in the passive for me, which becomes active in
our, in my life. And this fact of being in the passive, of not making
ourselves Christian but of being made Christian by God, already to some
extent involves the mystery of the Cross: only by dying to my
selfishness, by coming out of myself, can I be Christian.
- Lectio Divina, 11 June 2012
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
and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, death opens to life, to eternal
life, which is not an infinite duplicate of the present time, but
something completely new. Faith tells us that the true immortality for
which we hope is not an idea, a concept, but a relationship of full
communion with the living God: it is resting in his hands, in his love,
and becoming in him one with all the brothers and sisters that he has
created and redeemed, with all Creation. Our hope, then, lies in the
love of God that shines resplendent from the Cross of Christ who lets
Jesus’ words to the good thief: “Today you will be with me in Paradise”
(Lk 23:43) resound in our heart. This is life in its fullness: life in
God; a life of which we now have only a glimpse as one sees blue sky
through fog.
- Homily, 3 November 2012
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 and
mothers do not love their children only when they deserve love; they
always love them, though of course, they make them understand when they
are wrong. We learn from God to seek only what is good and never what is
evil. We learn to look at each other not only with our eyes, but with
the eyes of God, which is the gaze of Jesus Christ. A gaze that begins
in the heart and does not stop at the surface, that goes beyond
appearances and manages to capture the deepest aspirations of the other:
waiting to be heard, for caring attention, in a word: love. But the
opposite is also true: that by opening myself to another, just as he or
she is, by reaching out, by making myself available, I am also opening
myself to know God, to feel that he is there and is good. Love of God
and love of neighbour are inseparable and are mutually related. Jesus
did not invent one or the other but revealed that they are essentially a
single commandment and did so not only through the Word, but especially
with his testimony: the person of Jesus and his whole Mystery embody
the unity of love of God and neighbour, like the two arms of the Cross,
vertical and horizontal. In the Eucharist he gives us this two-fold
love, giving himself, because, nourished by this Bread, we love one
another as he has loved us.
- Angelus Address, 4 November 2012
17 February 2015
All our preaching must measure itself against the saying of Jesus
Christ: “My teaching is not mine” (Jn 7:16). We preach not private
theories and opinions, but the faith of the Church, whose servants we
are.
- Homily, 5 April 2012
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 once a citizen and a believer. It also legitimizes the fact
that believers have a contribution to make to the building up of
society. Strengthening religious freedom consolidates social bonds,
nourishes the hope of a better world, creates favourable conditions for
peace and harmonious development, while at the same time establishing
solid foundations for securing the rights of future generations.
- Homily, 28 March 2012
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 happiness, a servant of unity. He wishes to write in each of your lives a story of friendship. Hold on to him, then, as the best of friends. He will never tire of speaking to those who always love and who do good. This you will hear, if you strive in each moment to be with him who will help you in more difficult situations.
- Meeting with Young People, 24 March 2012
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
world. This is the secret of authentic happiness.
- Meeting with Young People, 24 March 2012
A yearning for joy lurks within the heart of every man
and woman. Far more than immediate and fleeting feelings of
satisfaction, our hearts seek a perfect, full and lasting joy capable of
giving “flavour” to our existence. This is particularly true for you,
because youth is a time of continuous discovery of life, of the world,
of others and of ourselves. It is a time of openness to the future and
of great longing for happiness, friendship, sharing and truth, a time
when we are moved by high ideals and make great plans.
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 shepherds on the night Jesus was born (cf. Lk 2:10). Not only
did God speak, not only did he accomplish great signs throughout the
history of humankind, but he drew so near to us that he became one of us
and lived our life completely. In these difficult times, so many young
people all around you need to hear that the Christian message is a
message of joy and hope! I would like to reflect with you on this joy
and on how to find it, so that you can experience it more deeply and
bring it to everyone you meet.
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, 15 September 2012
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 irreplaceable.
- Address, 15 September 2012
It is here and now that we are called to celebrate the victory of love
over hate, forgiveness over revenge, service over domination, humility
over pride, and unity over division.
- Address, 14 September 2012
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!
- Address, 14 September 2012
08 October 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, 20 November 2011
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 the Bishops of Benin, 19 November 2011
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 himself to
pray. Like Jesus, I too can find a calm place to pray where I can quietly stand
before a Cross or a holy picture in order to speak to Jesus and to listen to
him. I can also use the Gospels. That way, I keep within my heart a passage
which has touched me and which will guide me throughout the day. To stay with
Jesus like this for a little while lets him fill me with his love, light and
life! This love, which I receive in prayer, calls me in turn to give it to my
parents, to my friends, to everyone with whom I live, even with those who do not
like me, and those whom I do not appreciate enough.
- Meeting with children, 19 November 2011
The journey to the Grotto of Bethlehem is a journey of inner liberation,
an experience of profound freedom, because it impels us to come out of
ourselves and to go towards God who has made himself close to us, who
heartens us with his presence and with his freely-given love, who
precedes and accompanies us in our daily decisions, who speaks to us in
the secrecy of our hearts and in the Sacred Scriptures.
- Homily, 16 December 2010
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 its citizens or to
prescind completely from it. Through the democratic activity of citizens
conscious of their lofty calling, those laws and institutions must adequately
reflect the authentic nature of the person and support its religious dimension.
Since the latter is not a creation of the state, it cannot be manipulated by the
state, but must rather be acknowledged and respected by it.
States and the various human
communities must never forget that religious freedom is the condition for the
pursuit of truth, and truth does not impose itself by violence but “by the force
of its own truth”.[10]
In this sense, religion is a positive driving force for the building of
civil and political society.
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 the first
school for the social, cultural, moral and spiritual formation and growth of
children, who should always be able to see in their father and mother the first
witnesses of a life directed to the pursuit of truth and the love of God.
Parents must be always free to transmit to their children, responsibly and
without constraints, their heritage of faith, values and culture. The family,
the first cell of human society, remains the primary training ground for
harmonious relations at every level of coexistence, human, national and
international. Wisdom suggests that this is the road to building a strong and
fraternal social fabric, in which young people can be prepared to assume their
proper responsibilities in life, in a free society, and in a spirit of
understanding and peace.
Without the acknowledgement of his spiritual being,
without openness to the transcendent, the human person withdraws within himself,
fails to find answers to the heart’s deepest questions about life’s meaning,
fails to appropriate lasting ethical values and principles, and fails even to
experience authentic freedom and to build a just society.
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 light the identity,
meaning and purpose of the person are fully understood. To deny or arbitrarily
restrict this freedom is to foster a reductive vision of the human person; to
eclipse the public role of religion is to create a society which is unjust,
inasmuch as it fails to take account of the true nature of the human person;
it is to stifle the growth of the authentic and lasting peace of the whole human
family [emphasis in the original].
10 September 2013
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 like
you. Help us to recognize your face in others who need our assistance,
in those who are suffering or forsaken, in all people, and help us to
live together with you as brothers and sisters, so as to become one
family, your family.
- Homily, 24 December 2010
17 July 2013
God knows us in our inmost depths, better than we ourselves, and
loves us; and knowing this must suffice.
- General Audience Address, 7 March 2012
Yet God’s silence, as
happened to Jesus, does not indicate his absence. Christians know well that the
Lord is present and listens, even in the darkness of pain, rejection and
loneliness.
- General Audience Address, 7 March 2012
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 him take root in our minds and hearts and
inspire our life.
- General Audience Address, 7 March 2012
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).
- General Audience Address, 7 March 2012
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 silence...
- General Audience Address, 7 March 2012
Jesus’ experience on the
cross profoundly reveals the situation of the person praying and the culmination
of his prayer: having heard and recognized the word of God, we must also come to
terms with the silence of God, an important expression of the same divine Word.
- General Audience Address, 7 March 2012
True faith in God, then, is inseparable from
personal holiness, just as it is from the search for justice.
- Homily, 25 January 2013
Faith needs to be strengthened through
teaching, so that it can enlighten the minds and hearts of
believers.
- Fides per Doctrinam, 16 January 2013
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 conjugal and
family life the truth of men and women as his children, regenerated by
Baptism.
- Address, 26 January 2013
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 Father,
helping, forgiving us and saving us.
- General Audience Address, 30 January 2013
The continuous meditation on the Cross, in this holy place, has been a
means of sanctification for many Christians, who, throughout eight
centuries, have knelt and prayed here in silence and in recollection.
- Address, 13 May 2012
It may be said that the impulse of scientific research itself stems from
the longing for God that dwells in the human heart: basically,
scientists, even unconsciously, strive to attain that truth which can
give meaning to life.
- Address, 3 May 2012
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 Spirit appropriates seven men chosen by the Church,
consecrating them in the Truth that is Jesus Christ: he is the silent
protagonist, present during the imposition of hands so that the chosen ones may
be transformed by his power and sanctified in order to face the practical
challenges, the pastoral challenges.
- General Audience Address, 25 April 2012
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
peace, life and hope, gifts we need for our human and spiritual rebirth.
Only he can roll away those stones from the tombs in which all too
often people seal themselves off from their own feelings, their own
relationships, their own behaviour; stones that sanction death:
division, enmity, resentment, envy, diffidence, indifference. Only he,
the Living One, can give meaning to existence and enable those who are
weary and sad, downhearted and drained of hope, to continue on their
journey.
- General Audience Address, 11 April 2012
...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: his
glorious humanity remains “wounded”. The purpose of this act is to
confirm the new reality of the Resurrection: Christ, now among his own,
is a real person, the same Jesus who three days earlier was nailed to
the cross. And it is in this way that in the dazzling light of Easter,
in the encounter with the Risen One, the disciples perceive the salvific
meaning of his passion and his death. Then sorrow and fear turn into
full joy. The sorrow and the wounds themselves become a source of joy.
- General Audience Address, 11 April 2012
Christian worship is not only a commemoration of past
events nor even a specific, inner mystical experience; rather, it is
essentially an encounter with the Risen Lord who lives in the dimension
of God beyond time and space, and yet becomes really present amidst the
community, speaks to us in the Sacred Scriptures and breaks the bread of
eternal life for us.
It is through these signs that we relive what the
disciples experienced, that is, the event of seeing Jesus and at the
same time of not recognizing him; of touching his body, a real body and
yet free from earthly bonds.
- Regina Caeli Address, 15 April 2012
15 July 2013
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 that he cannot give
something.
- Angelus Address, 11 November 2012
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 passes from the senses to the mind and heart — there is no
doubt that music, and especially song, can give the recitation of the Psalms and
Canticles of the Bible greater communicative force.
- Address, 10 November 2012
...work is not only an instrument for
individual profit but a moment in which we express our abilities by spending
ourselves, in a spirit of service, in professional activity, whether this be in
manual labour, farming, science or some other area.
- Address, 19 May 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, 26 September 2012
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.
- General Audience Address, 3 October 2012
The Christian liturgy is the worship of the
universal temple which is the Risen Christ, whose arms are outstretched on the
Cross to draw everyone into the embrace of God’s eternal love. It is the worship
of a wide open heaven. It is never solely the event of a single community with
its place in time and space. It is important that every Christian feel and be
truly integrated into this universal “we” which provides the “I”, the basis and
refuge of the “I”, in the Body of Christ which is the Church.
- General Audience Address, 3 October 2012
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
of a child of God in Christ...
- General Audience Address, 3 October 2012
Christian prayer consists in
looking constantly at Christ and in an ever new way, speaking to him, being with
him in silence, listening to him, acting and suffering with him. The Christian
rediscovers his true identity in Christ, “the first-born of all creation” in
whom “all things hold together” (cf. Col 1,15ff.). In identifying with him, in
being one with him, I rediscover my personal identity as a true son or daughter
who looks to God as to a Father full of love.
But let us not forget: it is in the Church that we discover Christ, that we know him as a living Person.
But let us not forget: it is in the Church that we discover Christ, that we know him as a living Person.
- General Audience Address, 3 October 2012
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
we live our customary relationships in life, with our dearest relatives, with
true friends; indeed the relationship with the Lord is the relationship that
gives light to all our other relationships.
- General Audience Address, 3 October 2012
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 with the
truth of a God who revealed himself in history, anxious to communicate with
human beings in a tête-à -tête, in a relationship of love with them. In fact, at
the root of every doctrine or value is the event of the encounter between man
and God in Jesus Christ. Christianity, before being a moral or an ethic, is the
event of love, it is the acceptance of the Person of Jesus.
- General Audience Address, 14 November 2012
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 he
loves us. This is a certainty that must accompany us every day, even if a
certain widespread mentality makes it harder for the Church and for Christians
to communicate to every creature the joy of the Gospel and to lead everyone to
the encounter with Jesus, the one Saviour of the world.
However, this is our mission. It is the mission of the Church and every
believer must carry it out joyously, feeling it his own, through an existence
truly enlivened by faith, marked by charity, by service to God and to others,
and that can radiate hope. This mission shines out above all in the holiness to
which we are all called.
- General Audience Address, 14 November 2012
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 wanted and loved by God, each
one is important and necessary
- Address, 12 November 2012
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 never let ourselves be imprisoned by
sorrow! We have received the gift of longevity. Living is beautiful even at our
age, despite some “aches and pains” and a few limitations. In our faces may
there always be the joy of feeling loved by God and not sadness.
- Address, 12 November 2012
Contact with offenders paying the
price for what they have done and the commitment needed to restore dignity and
hope to people who in many cases have already suffered marginalization and scorn
call to mind the mission of Christ himself, who came to call not the just, but
sinners (cf. Mt 9:13; Mk 2:17; Lk 5:32), the privileged
recipients of divine mercy.
- Address, 22 November 2012
...it is necessary that in punishing them, everything
possible be done to correct and improve them. When this does not happen,
justice is not done in an integral sense.
- Address, 22 November 2012
The
prisoner’s personal need to undergo in prison a process of rehabilitation and
maturation is actually a need of society itself, both because it stands to
regain someone who can make a useful contribution to the common good, and also
because such a process makes the prisoner less likely to reoffend and thus
endanger society.
- Address, 22 November 2012
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 and
religious relativism, blurring the truths to believe in as well as the salvific
uniqueness of Christianity. The risk of fabricating, as it were, a
“do-it-yourself” religion is not so far off today. Instead we must return to
God, to the God of Jesus Christ, we must rediscover the Gospel message and make
it enter our consciences and our daily life more deeply.
- General Audience Address, 17 October 2012
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, and
he invites you to share in his priestly work of bringing about the salvation of
the world. Place yourselves completely at his disposal and allow him to form
you for whatever task it may be that he has in mind for you.
- Address, 3 December 2012
...one of the most serious problems of our time is ignorance of religious
practice in which many men and women live, including some Catholic faithful (cf.
Apostolic Exhortation
Christifideles laici, Chapter
V).
For this reason the new evangelization, to which the Church has been resolutely committed since the Second Vatican Council and of which the Motu Proprio Ubicumque et Semper outlined the central modalities, is particularly urgent as underlined by the Fathers of the Synod which ended recently. The new evangelization calls all Christians to account for the hope that is in them (cf. 1 Pet 3:15), aware that one of the worst obstacles for our pastoral mission is ignorance of the content of the faith. In fact it is a dual ignorance: a lack of knowledge of the person of Jesus Christ and ignorance of the sublimity of his teachings, of their universal and perpetual value in the search for the meaning of life and happiness. Moreover this lack of knowledge results in an inability in the new generations to understand history and to feel that they are heirs to this tradition which has shaped the life, society, art and culture of Europe.
For this reason the new evangelization, to which the Church has been resolutely committed since the Second Vatican Council and of which the Motu Proprio Ubicumque et Semper outlined the central modalities, is particularly urgent as underlined by the Fathers of the Synod which ended recently. The new evangelization calls all Christians to account for the hope that is in them (cf. 1 Pet 3:15), aware that one of the worst obstacles for our pastoral mission is ignorance of the content of the faith. In fact it is a dual ignorance: a lack of knowledge of the person of Jesus Christ and ignorance of the sublimity of his teachings, of their universal and perpetual value in the search for the meaning of life and happiness. Moreover this lack of knowledge results in an inability in the new generations to understand history and to feel that they are heirs to this tradition which has shaped the life, society, art and culture of Europe.
- Address, 30 November 2012
Saying “I believe in God” means founding my
life on him, letting his Word guide it every day, in practical decisions,
without fear of losing some part of myself.
- General Audience Address, 23 January 2013
Only true
friendship with God will break the bonds of loneliness from which our fragile
humanity suffers and will establish a true and lasting communion with others, a
spiritual bond that will readily prompt within us the wish to serve the needs of
those we love in Christ.
- Address, 18 February 2011
Do not forget,
however, that the family is the primary means for transmitting the faith, that
small domestic Church called to make Jesus and his Gospel known and to educate
according to the law of God, so that each one of you may achieve full human and
Christian maturity (cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation
Familiaris
Consortio, n. 2).
- Address, 1 December 2012
Do not forget,
however, that the family is the primary means for transmitting the faith, that
small domestic Church called to make Jesus and his Gospel known and to educate
according to the law of God, so that each one of you may achieve full human and
Christian maturity (cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation
Familiaris
Consortio, n. 2).
- Address, 1 December 2012
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 December 2012
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 December 2012
It is the Easter joy that does not stay silent or conceal the
realities of pain, of suffering, of effort, of difficulty, of incomprehension
and of death itself, but that can offer criteria for interpreting all things in
the perspective of Christian hope.
- General Audience Address, 28 November 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 a
faithful love, even to the Cross.
- 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 Crucifix is the supremely distinctive sign of him who
announces the Gospel: a sign of love and peace, a call to conversion and
reconciliation.
- Homily, 7 October 2012
Those who advocate research on embryonic stem cells
in the hope of achieving such a result make the grave mistake of denying the
inalienable right to life of all human beings from the moment of conception to
natural death. The destruction of even one human life can never be justified in
terms of the benefit that it might conceivably bring to another.
- Address, 12 November 2011
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 the same dignity constitutes a grave crime against humanity.
- Address, 7 November 2011
A society is truly human when without reservations it protects and respects the
dignity of every person from conception until the moment of his or her natural
death. However, should it decide to “get rid” of its members in the greatest
need of protection, exclude people from being people, it would be behaving in a
profoundly inhuman and also distorted manner with regard to the equality —
obvious to every person of good will — of the dignity of all people, in all the
stages of life.
- Address, 7 November 2011
...discover
in volunteer work a way to grow in the self-giving love which gives life its
deepest meaning. Young people readily react to the call of love. Let us help
them to hear Christ who makes his call felt in their hearts and draws them
closer to himself. We must not be afraid to set before them a radical and
life-changing challenge, helping them to learn that our hearts are made to love
and be loved. It is in self-giving that we come to live life in all its
fullness.
- Address, 11 November 2011
...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 authentic freedom, justice and solidarity.
- Address, 11 November 2011
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 Christ’s presence and love which, like
the tree in the Gospel, grows to give shelter, protection and strength to all
who require it.
- Address, 11 November 2011
We also become visible instruments of his love in a
world that still profoundly yearns for that love amid the poverty, loneliness,
marginalization and ignorance that we see all around us.
- Address, 11 November 2011
Christ’s grace helps us to discover within ourselves a human desire for
solidarity and a fundamental vocation to love. His grace perfects, strengthens
and elevates that vocation and enables us to serve others without reward,
satisfaction or any recompense.
- Address, 11 November 2011
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
(cf. 1 Cor 13:3).
- Angelus Address, 13 November 2011
Death, followed by the Last Judgement, is an obligatory stage to pass through in
order to reach this definitive reality.
- Angelus Address, 13 November 2011
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 every isolation, even that of death, in a totality which also
transcends time and space. Man can be explained, he finds his deepest meaning,
only if there is God.
- General Audience Address, 2 November 2011
The
role of education cannot, in fact, be reduced to the mere transmission of
knowledge and skills that aim to form a professional but must include all the
aspects of the person, from his social side to his yearning for the transcendent.
- Address, 31 October 2011
The Church hopes that the State, in its turn, will recognize that a healthy
secularism must not view religion, simply as an individual sentiment that can be
relegated to the private sphere but rather as a reality which, also organized in
visible structures, needs her public presence in the community in order to be
recognized.
- Address, 31 October 2011
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 to
take hold of them and to be proclaimers of the Gospel. It is important to seek
to live one’s life generously, not according to one’s own plan, but to the one
God has for each of us, conforming our own will to the Lord’s; it is important
to be prepared, also through serious and committed study, to serve the People of
God in the tasks which will be entrusted to them.
- Homily, 4 November 2011
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 Cross.
In this logic, being a priest means being a servant also
through an exemplary life.
- Homily, 4 November 2011
One should never forget that
one comes into the priesthood through the Sacrament of Orders and this means
exactly opening oneself to the God’s action by choosing daily to give oneself up
for God and for one’s brethren, according to the Gospel saying: “You received
without pay, give without pay” (Mt 10:8). The Lord’s call to the ministry is not
the fruit of special merit but a gift to be received and responded to by
dedicating oneself not to one’s own plan but to God’s, in a generous and
disinterested way, for he sends us out according to his will, even if this might
not correspond to our idea of self-fulfilment.
- Homily, 4 November 2011
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, into an intimate friendship with him, so that all is done “not by
constraint but willingly” (1 Pet 5:2), according to his will of love, with great
interior freedom and profound joy in the heart.
- Homily, 4 November 2011
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
have the grace to distinguish his voice from so many other voices and to respond
like Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and
we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn
6:68-69).
- Homily, 4 November 2011
True
wisdom is making the most of mortal life in order to do
works of mercy, for after death this will no longer be
possible. When we are reawoken for the Last Judgement,
it will be made on the basis of the love we have shown
in our earthly life (cf. Mt 25:31-46). And this love is
a gift of Christ, poured out in us by the Holy Spirit.
- Angelus Address, 6 November 2011
If we remove God, we
remove Christ and the world falls back into emptiness
and darkness.
- Angelus Address, 6 November 2011
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 always give too
little. Indeed, at times we even seek to substitute money or
material things for our hearts and the commitment to giving
ourselves.
- General Audience Address, 9 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 2013
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 state of being and it makes us pilgrims who are on an inner journey towards the true King of the world and his promise of justice, truth and love.
- Homily, 6 January 2013
Human beings have an innate restlessness for God, but this restlessness is a participation in God's own restlessness for us.
- Homily, 6 January 2013
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, 6 January 2013
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 seems urgent. Our time is already completely full. But matters go
deeper still. Does God actually have a place in our thinking? Our process of
thinking is structured in such a way that he simply ought not to exist.
- Homily, 24 December 2012
The precondition for peace
is the dismantling of the dictatorship of relativism
and of the supposition of a completely autonomous
morality which precludes acknowledgment of the
ineluctable natural moral law inscribed by God upon
the conscience of every man and woman. Peace is
the building up of coexistence in rational and moral
terms, based on a foundation whose measure is not
created by man, but rather by God.
Today Christians are called to be witnesses of
prayer precisely because our world is often closed to the divine
horizon and to the hope that brings the encounter with God.
- General Audience Address, 30 November 2011
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 our part. Above all
continuity and constancy are important.
- General Audience Address, 30 November 2011
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 personal decision to open ourselves to his will, to ask him for the strength to conform our will to his will, throughout our life, in obedience to his design of love for us.
- General Audience Address, 30 November 2011
Humanity does not only need benefactors but also humble, practical people who, like Jesus, are able to stand beside their brethren, sharing a little of their struggle.
- Address, 24 November 2011
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.
- Address, 24 November 2011
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 the love with which we have always been and always will be loved by God may become an active approach to life, an effort of service and an awareness of responsibility.
- Address, 24 November 2011
Responding to needs not only means giving bread to the hungry; it also means letting oneself be challenged by the reasons causing their hunger, with the gaze of Jesus who could see the deep reality of the people who came to him. It is in this perspective that the present day calls into question your method of being animators and agents of charity.
- Address, 24 November 2011
The Church expects much of you, of your enthusiasm, of your capacity for looking ahead and of your desire for radicalism in life's decisions.
- Homily, 2010
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
fundamental characteristic of Christian life.
- Homily, 12 December 2010
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 in
coming, but on the contrary to prepare for its coming with active
trust.
- Angelus Address, 12 December 2010
Even when difficulties arise in conjugal life and in the relationship
with their children, married couples must never cease to stay faithful
to that fundamental “yes” which they said before God and to each other
on their wedding day, remembering that faithfulness to one’s vocation
demands courage, generosity and sacrifice.
- Homily, 12 December 2010
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
Church which, under the guidance of the Bishop — and in the parish,
under the guidance of the Parish Priest who acts in his place —
journeys on in communion towards the Kingdom of God.
- Homily, 12 December 2010
Advent is a strong invitation to everyone to let God come increasingly into our lives, our houses, our neighborhoods and our communities in order to have light in the midst of the many shadows, in the numerous daily efforts.
- Homily, 12 December 2010
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, but in union with you to live it for others. Help me to become ever more your friend.
- Homily, 29 June 2011
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 about who Christ is; rather, it entails a personal relationship with Christ, a surrender of our whole person, with all our understanding, will and feelings, to God's self-revelation.
- Homily, 21 August 2011
06 July 2013
On the origins of the Church
...we cannot make the Church, we can only announce what he [Christ] has done. The Church does not begin with our "making", but with the "making" and "speaking" of God.
- Meditation for the Synod of Bishops, 8 October 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)