In the end, life is not about accumulation. It is much more than success. To be truly alive is to be transformed from within, open to the energy of God’s love.

- Address at WYD Vigil, 19 July 2008

What constitutes our faith is not primarily what we do but what we receive.

- Address at WYD Vigil, 19 July 2008

God is with us in the reality of life, not the fantasy! It is embrace, not escape, that we seek! So the Holy Spirit gently but surely steers us back to what is real, what is lasting, what is true. It is the Spirit who leads us back into the communion of the Blessed Trinity!

- Address at WYD Vigil, 19 July 2008

Unity and reconciliation cannot be achieved through our efforts alone. God has made us for one another (cf. Gen 2:24) and only in God and his Church can we find the unity we seek.

- Address at WYD Vigil, 19 July 2008

By its nature, relativism fails to see the whole picture. It ignores the very principles which enable us to live and flourish in unity, order and harmony.

- Address at WYD Vigil, 19 July 2008

Religion offers peace, but more importantly, it arouses within the human spirit a thirst for truth and a hunger for virtue.

- Address at Inter Religious Meeting, 18 July 2008

False “gods”, whatever name, shape or form we give them, are nearly always associated with the worship of three things: material possessions, possessive love, or power.

- Address, 18 July 2008

At each Mass, when the Lord’s Body and Blood are lifted up at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, lift up your own hearts and lives, through Christ, with him and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, as a loving sacrifice to God our Father.

- Homily, 19 July 2008

The Cross reveals that we find ourselves only by giving our lives away, receiving God’s love as an unmerited gift and working to draw all men and women into the beauty of that love and the light of the truth which alone brings salvation to the world.

- Homily, 19 July 2008

[E]very altar is a symbol of Jesus Christ, present in the midst of his Church as priest, altar and victim .

- Homily, 19 July 2008

Is it not true that when presented with high ideals, many young people are attracted to asceticism and the practice of moral virtue through self-respect and a concern for others? They delight in contemplating the gift of creation and are intrigued by the mystery of the transcendent.

- Address at Inter Religious Meeting, 18 July 2008

We must guard against any temptation to view doctrine as divisive and hence an impediment to the seemingly more pressing and immediate task of improving the world in which we live.

- Ecumenical Address, 18 July 2008

The road of ecumenism ultimately points towards a common celebration of the Eucharist (cf. Ut Unum Sint, 23-24; 45), which Christ entrusted to his Apostles as the sacrament of the Church’s unity par excellence.

- Ecumenical Address, 18 July 2008

Christ offers more! Indeed he offers everything!

- Address, 17 July 2008

[L]ife is not governed by chance; it is not random. Your very existence has been willed by God, blessed and given a purpose (cf. Gen 1:28)! Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find happiness and joy. Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.

- Address, 17 July 2008

Yet, experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair.

- Address, 17 July 2008

Jesus is close to you! Feel his healing embrace, his compassion and mercy!

- Address, 17 July 2008

[S]tep forward into Christ’s loving embrace; recognize the Church as your home. No one need remain on the outside, for from the day of Pentecost the Church has been one and universal.

- Address, 17 July 2008

They long to hear the word of God, and to learn more about their Christian faith. They are eager to take part in an event which brings into focus the high ideals that inspire them, and they return home filled with hope and renewed in their resolve to contribute to the building of a better world.

- Address, 17 July 2008

Their example testifies that, only when one is in contact with the Lord, is one full of peace and joy and in this way it is possible to spread everywhere serenity, hope and optimism.

- General Audience, 20 August 2008