To be saints is not a privilege for a few, but a vocation for everyone.
I would like to ask you a question: how many of you pray to the Holy Spirit every day? Probably few, but we must satisfy this desire of Jesus and pray every day to the Holy Spirit, so that he opens our heart towards Jesus.
To follow Jesus means putting him first, and stripping ourselves of all the things that oppress our hearts.
How powerful prayer is! May we never lose the courage to say: Lord, give us your peace.
Dearest brothers and sisters who are so persecuted, I know how much you suffer, I know that you are stripped of everything. I am with you in the faith of the one who has conquered evil!
I want to express my closeness to the people of the Philippines who have been struck by a strong earthquake, and I invite you to pray for that dear nation, which in recent days has suffered different calamities.
Let’s return to our first love, in order to receive the fire which Jesus has kindled in the world and to bring that fire to all people, to the very ends of the earth.
To be a mother is a great treasure. Mothers, in their unconditional and sacrificial love for their children, are the antidote to individualism; they are the greatest enemies against war.
Lord, help us to live the virtue of generosity, to love without limits.
Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.
The Lord is always there waiting to give us his love: it is an amazing thing, one which never ceases to surprise us!
If we wish to follow Christ closely, we cannot choose an easy, quiet life. It will be a demanding life, but full of joy.
When a society lacks God, even prosperity is joined by a terrible spiritual poverty.
Let the Church always be a place of mercy and hope, where everyone is welcomed, loved and forgiven.
Do I pray that the Lord gives me the desire to do his will, or do I look for compromises because I’m afraid of God’s will?
Only by becoming poor ourselves, by stripping away our complacency, will we be able to identify with the least of our brothers and sisters.
We have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.
Take good care of creation. St. Francis wanted that. People occasionally forgive, but nature never does. If we don’t take care of the environment, there’s no way of getting around it.
How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion.
Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.