General Audiences

September 6th, 1978

September 13th, 1978

September 20th, 1978

September 27th, 1978

By my right and my left there are Cardinals and Bishops, my brothers in the Episcopate. I am only their elder brother. My warmest greeting to them and also to their dioceses.

Just a month ago, Paul VI died in Castelgandolfo, a great Pontiff, who has rendered big services to the Church during fifteen years. The effects are already noticed partly now, but I think they will be seen mainly in the future. Every Wednesday, he came here and talked to people.

In 1977 Synod, many Bishops said: 'Wednesdays speeches that Pope Paul pronounces are an authentic catechesis adapted to the modern world.

I will try to imitate him, with the hope of being able to also help people somehow to be better. But to be good it is necessary to be in rule with God, with the others and with us ourselves.

Before God, the right position is Abraham' s when he said: 'I am just ash and dust before You, Lord!' We must feel small before God. When I say: 'Lord, I believe', I am not ashamed to feel like a boy before his mother; I believe in my mother; I believe in God and I believe in what He has revealed me.

The Commandments are a little more difficult to fulfil, sometimes very difficult; but God has given them to us not as a whim or for His interest, but quite the contrary, only for our interest.

Once, a person went to buy a car. The salesman made him notice some things: 'Look that the car has excellent conditions. Treat it well: you know, Super gasoline in the tank, and for the motor, fine oil'. The other one answered him: 'No; to your knowledge, I will tell you I do not bear neither the gasoline smell nor that one of the oil; in the tank, I will put champagne I like so much, and the motor I will grease it with jam. Do as you like, but do not come and complain if you end inside a hole with the car. The Lord has done something similar with us: He has given us this body, animated of an intelligent soul and a beautiful will. And He has said: this machine is good, but treat it well.

These are the Commandments: Honour your father and your mother, do not kill, do not get angry, be delicate, do not say lies, do not steal... If we were able to fulfil the commandments, we would work better and the world would also work better.

And then, the others... But the others are at three levels: they are over us, others are at our level and others are bellow. Over us, they are our parents. The Catechism said: to respect them, to love them, to obey them. The Pope must instil respect and obedience from children to their parents.

I am told there are altar- boys from Malta here. Come one, please... the altar-boys of Malta, who have served for a month in St. Peter. So, what is your name? -- James. - - James! Tell me, have you ever been ill? -- No. - - Never? -- No. - - Haven' t you ever been ill? -- No. -- Not even a fever? -- No. - - What a lucky one! But, when a boy is ill, who gives him any broth, any medicine? Is it not mum? Alright. Later, you become elder and your mother grows old; you become a great gentleman and your poor mother will be ill in bed. Then, who will be going to give to mum a little milk and medicines? Who? -- My brothers and me. - - Wonderful! His brothers and him, he has said. I like this. Have you understood?

But not always it happens like that. I, as Bishop in Venice, sometimes used to go and visit old people' s home. Once I met a sick, an old woman. 'How are you, madam?' 'Mmm' 'Eating?' 'OK' 'Heat, heating?' 'OK' 'So, are you glad, madam?' 'No, I am not ', and she started weeping. 'But, why are you weeping?' 'My daughter-in-law and my son never come and visit me. I'd like to meet my little grandchildren ' Heating, food are not enough: there is a heart; it is also necessary to think about our old ones' heart. The Lord has said that parents must be respected and be loved, also when they are old.

And besides the parents, it is the State, the superior ones. Can the Pope recommend obedience? Bossuet, a great Bishop, wrote: Where no one gives orders, all give orders. Where all give orders, nobody gives orders, but chaos. Sometimes, something similar is also seen in this world. Let us respect, then, those who are superior.

Then, there are our equal ones. And usually here, there are two virtues to practice: justice and charity. But charity is justice heart. It is necessary to love the others, the Lord has recommended it to us so much! I always recommend not only great charities, but little charities. On a book titled 'The art of making friends', written by Carnegie, American, I have read this insignificant episode: One lady had four men at home: her husband, a brother and two children. She was in charge to go shopping, to wash and iron the clothes, the kitchen... everything, her. One Sunday, they come home. The table is ready for lunch, but there is only a handful of hay on the dishes. They protest and say: 'Oh, but what, hay!' And she says: 'No, everything is ready. But, let me tell you this: I change the menu, I keep all clean, I take care of everything. And never, you have never told me once: You have prepared us a pretty little lunch. I am not made of stone. One works more pleased when gratefulness is shown. These are the small charities. We all have some person at home who is waiting for a compliment.

Besides, there are those who are smaller than us; they are the children, the sick, and even the sinners. As a Bishop, I have been even very close to those who do not believe in God. I have been convinced that they often reject not God, but the wrong idea they have about God. How much mercy it is necessary to have! And also those who are wrong... It is really necessary to be in order with us ourselves.

I limit myself to recommend you a virtue very estimated by the Lord. He has said: Learn from me that I am meek and humble of heart.

I am risking of saying a nonsense. But I say it: the Lord loves so much humility that sometimes allows serious sins. Why? So that who have committed them -- these sins, I say – afterwards, being regretful, they stay humble. One is not feeling like thinking to be half a Saint, half an angel, when one knows that serious offences have been committed.

The Lord has recommended as much: be humble! Even if you have made great things, say: useless servants we are. However the tendency of all of us is rather the opposite: to put ourselves in the first row. Humble, humble: it is the Christian virtue that concerns to all of us.

The just married presence touches more specially because the family is something great. Once I wrote an article in the newspaper and I allowed myself to joke mentioning Montaigne, a French writer, who said: 'Marriage is like a cage: those who are outside do the impossible to enter and those who are inside do the impossible to leave'. No, no, no. But some days later, a letter from an old provincial education delegate, who had written books, arrived to me, and he had reproached me, saying: 'Excellency, you have made wrong when mentioning Montaigne; my wife and me have been together for sixty years and every day is like the first'. And he even mentioned a French poet, in French but I say it in Italian: 'I love you every day more, today much more than yesterday, but much less than tomorrow'. I wish you lively that can happen to you the same.

To the participants at the VII International Congress organized by the International Transplants Society

We address a particular greeting to the VII International Congress of Organs Transplants Society members. We are very touched by your visit, that it is a tribute to the Pope and, mainly, your wish of making clear and looking deeply the serious human and moral problems at stake into the research and surgical technologies which are your fight. We encourage you, in this matter, to ask the Catholic friends' help, expert in Theology and Moral, and very informed about your problems, who have a very sure knowledge of Catholic doctrine and a deeply human sense.

Today, we are glad to express our congratulations to you and our confidence for the great work you go into service of human life, to make it longer in the best conditions. The whole problem is to work respecting the person and its others, organ donors or their beneficiaries, and never making man become an object of experiments. There is the respect for his body, there is also the respect for his spirit. We pray God, the Author of life, to inspire you, to assist you in these wonderful and formidable responsibilities. May Him bless you together with all your beloved ones!

If you allow me, now I wanted to invite you to join my prayers for an intention on which I am very interested. You will have known by the press and the television that, at Camp David, United States, an important meeting between the leaders of Egypt, Israel and the United States begins today, with the intention of finding a solution in the Middle East conflict. This fight, that lasts already more than thirty years in Jesus' land, has caused so many victims and so many sufferings, as much between Arabs as between Jews, and has infected the adjacent countries as a malignant disease. Think about Lebanon, a martyr Lebanon, undone by the repercussions of this crisis. Then, for that reason, I' d want to pray together for the happy success of Camp David meeting; may these conversations smooth out the way towards a right and total peace. Right, that is to say, that satisfies all the parts in fight. Total, without leaving any question without solution: the Palestinian problem, the security of Israel, the Holy City of Jerusalem. Let us pray the Lord to illuminate people in charge of all the involved peoples, so that they can have amplitude of sights and can be brave when taking decisions that must bring serenity and peace to Holy Land and to all the Eastern world.

My first greeting goes to my brothers, the Bishops, who I see here present in a big number.

Pope John, in one of his notes that has also been printed, said: 'This time, I have made the retreat on the seven lamps of sanctification'. Seven virtues, he meant, that are faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, strength and temperance. Perhaps if today the Holy Spirit helps the poor Pope to explain, at least, one of these lamps, the first one: faith.

Here in Rome there has been a poet, Trilussa, who has also tried to speak about faith on one of his poetries. He said: 'That little old blind woman who I met / the night that I got lost in the middle of the forest / told me: If you don' t know the way / I will show it to you that I know it / If you have the strength to follow me / I will often be giving voices to you / up to there at the bottom, where there is a cypress / up to the top where there is a cross. I answered: Is it possible?... but it is strange / that can guide me who does not see... / Then the blind woman took me the hand / and she sighed: 'Walk'... It was Faith'.

As poetry, is funny. As Theology, is defective. Defective because when it is spoken about faith, the great Scene Director is God; because Jesus has said: 'Nobody comes to me if my Father does not attract him'. St. Paul had not faith; he even persecuted the faithful. God is waiting for him on the way to Damascus: Paul – He told him -- don' t dream about rearing, about kicking as a bolt horse. I am Jesus to whom you persecute. I have my plans for you. It is necessary you change. Paul surrendered; he changed by turning upside down his own life. Some years later, he will write to the Philipenses: 'That time, on the way to Damascus, God grasped me; since then, I do not make but running after Him to see if I am able to grasp Him, too, imitating Him and loving Him more and more'.

This is faith: to surrender to God, but transforming the own life. A thing not always easy. Augustine has told the trip of his faith; especially the last weeks, it was something terrible; it is possible to feel his soul almost shaking and twisting in inner fights. On this side, it is God who calls and insists; and, on the other one, the old habits, 'old friends' - he writes -, which were pulling me smoothly by my dress of meat and told me: 'Augustine, Augustine, but what, are you leaving us? Look that you will not be able to do this any more, you will not be able to do that and, for ever'. Difficult! 'I was -- he says -- in the situation of who is in bed in the morning. They tell him: 'Out, Augustine, get up'. And I said: 'Yes, later, just a little bit more, yet!'. Finally, the Lord gave me a good push and I was out. Right, not to say: Yes, but; yes, later. It is necessary to say: Yes, Lord! Immediately! This is faith. To answer the Lord with generosity. But, who is saying this yes? It is necessary to be humble and trust on God totally.

My mother used to tell me when I became elder: when you were a little boy you were very ill; I had to take you from a doctor to another one and have a sleepless night; do you believe me? How could I say: Mother, I do not believe in you? Of course, I believe in you, I believe in what you tell me, and mainly I believe in you. And so, in faith. It is not only to try to believe in things God has revealed, but to believe in Him, who deserves our faith, who has loved us so much and has done so much for love to us.

Right, it is also difficult to accept some truths, because the truths of faith are of two kind: some are pleasant; others are hard to our spirit. For example, it is pleasant to hear that God has much tenderness with us, even more tenderness than a mother' s with her children, as Isaiah says. This is pleasant and congenial.

There was a great French Bishop, Dupanloup, who used to tell the directors of seminaries: 'Be good with these ones who have to become Priests; be fathers, be mothers'. This pleases. However, other truths are difficult. God must punish if I am obstinate. He runs behind me, He prays: but, convert you! And I tell Him: No, no, no! until the end. It is almost me who obliges Him to punish me. This is not pleasant. But it is a truth of faith.

And there is another difficulty, the Church. St. Paul asked: 'Who are you, Lord?' - 'I am that Jesus to whom you persecute'. A light, a lightning has passed through his mind. I do not persecute Jesus, even I don' t know Him; I persecute Christians. It is seen that Jesus and Christians, Jesus and the Church, are the same thing: indivisible, inseparable.

Read St. Paul: 'Corpus Christi quad est Ecclesia '. Christ and the Church are an only thing. Christ is the Head, we, the Church, are its members. It is not possible to have faith and say 'I believe in Jesus, I accept Jesus, but I do not accept the Church'. It is necessary to accept the Church, as it is; and what is this Church like? Pope John has called it 'Mater et Magistra '. Teacher, too. St. Paul has said: 'Each one has to accept us like Christ' s assistants, and administrators and donors of His mysteries'.

When the poor Pope, when Bishops and Priests present the doctrine, they do not do more than to help Christ. It is not a our doctrine, it is Christ' s. We only must keep it and we only must present it.

I was present when Pope John inaugurated the Council on October 11^th, 1962. Among other things, he said: 'We hope that, with the Council, the Church can jump ahead'. All we hoped for it. But a jump ahead, on what way? He said it immediately: 'on the certain and immutable truths. Pope John has not even dreamt truths had to walk, to go ahead, and later to change, little by little. No! Truths are those; we must walk on the way of these truths, improve them, understand every time more, updating them, presenting them in a way adapted to the new times.

Pope Paul had the same worry, too. The first thing I did as soon as I was made a Pope, was to enter the Pontifical House private chapel; there, at the bottom, Pope Paul made place two mosaics, one of St. Peter and another one of St. Paul: St. Peter dying and St. Paul also dying. But bellow, bellow St. Peter, there are Jesus' words: 'I will pray for you, Peter, so that your faith cannot diminish'. And bellow St. Paul, who is receiving the blow of the sword: 'I have fulfilled my race, I have kept the faith'. You already know that in the last speech on June 29^th, he has said: 'After fifteen years of Pontificate, I can thank the Lord because I have defended the faith and I have kept it'.

The Church is mother, too. If it is continuator of Christ. Christ is good, the Church must be good, too. It must be mother with all; but if perhaps sometimes there were bad people in the Church? But we have a mum. If mum is ill, if my mother perhaps became lame, I would still love her. So, still in the Church, there are, and there are sometimes, defects and faults, our love for the Church must never be diminished.

Yesterday -- and I finish – I was sent a copy of Città Nuova and I have seen that they have reported, recording it, a very brief speech mine, with this episode: An English preacher, Mac Nabb, speaking at Hyde Park, had talked about the Church. When finishing, one requests to speak: 'Pretty what you have said. But I know some Catholic Priests who do not have been with the poor and have become rich. I also know Catholic husbands who have betrayed their wives. I do not like this Church composed by sinners'. The Father said: 'You are a bit right. But, may I present an objection?' – Let us see. -- 'Sorry, but if I am not wrong, is the neck of your shirt a little dirty? ' - 'Yes, I realize it is, a little bit…' -- 'But it is dirty because it was not used soap or because it was used the soap and it was useless at all?' -- 'No, I have not used any soap'. Right!

Then, the Catholic Church has also an extraordinary soap: Gospel, sacraments, prayer. The Gospel: read and lived; Sacraments celebrated in a suitable way; prayer… would be a wonderful soap capable to make us everybody holy. Aren' t all we enough saints because we have not used enough of this soap?

Let us try to answer to the Popes' hopes who have summoned and applied the Council, Pope John and Pope Paul. Let us try to improve the Church be better ourselves. Each one of us and all the Church could say the prayer that I use to say: 'Lord, take me as I am, with my defects, with my faults, but make me be as you wish'.

You know it, Jesus has said: 'I hide behind them; whatever is done to them it is done to Me'. So, in their persons, we venerate the same Lord, and we wish them the Lord be near them, help them and keep them.

On the right, however, there are just married. They have received a great sacrament; let us wish them that the received sacrament is really bringing them not only material goods of this world, but even more spiritual graces. Last century, there was in France, a distinguished professor, Federico Ozanam; he taught at the Sorbonne, he was eloquent, wonderful! He had a friend, Lacordaire, who used to say: 'This man is so wonderful and so good; he will become a Priest, a great Bishop, this one!' No!. He met an excellent young lady and they married. Lacordaire felt bad and said: 'Poor Ozanam! He has also fallen into the trap!'. Two years later, Lacordaire came to Rome and was welcomed by Pius IX: 'Come here, Father, - he told him -- come here. I had always heard to say that Jesus instituted seven sacraments: now you come, you change my cards over the table and tell me He has instituted six sacraments and a trap. No, father, marriage is not a trap, it is a great sacrament!'

With these wishes, we offer the congratulations to these beloved just married; may God bless them!

For Pope John, the 'second lamp of sanctification' was hope. Today, I am going to talk you about this virtue, that is compulsory for all Christians.

Dante Alighieri, in his Paradise (songs 24, 25 and 26), has imagined to appear in front of a test of Christianity. There was a magnificent court. 'Have you faith?', St. Peter asked him, at first. 'Have you hope?', St. Jacob continued. 'Have you charity?', St. John ended. 'Yes' – he said - I have faith, hope and charity'. He has demonstrated it and passed the test with the highest qualification.

Hope: a necessary virtue, too. Compulsory: but not for that reason is unpleasant. Still more, who has hope is travelling in a climate of confidence and abandonment in God, as when one is reading the psalmists: 'Lord - it is said with the psalmist -, You are my rock, my shield, my strength, my refuge, my lamp, my shepherd, my salvation. Even when a whole army was camped against me, my heart will not fear and if the battle rises against me, then my confidence will not be diminished'.

Perhaps you will say: But this psalmist, is not he being exaggeratedly enthusiastic? Is it possible that all the things have always been going well for him? No, they have not always been going well for him. He knows and he says it, that in this world the bad ones are often lucky and the good ones oppressed. And he complains about this with the Lord. He even says: 'Why are You sleeping, oh Lord? Why do You shut up? Wake up, Lord. Listen to me, Lord!'. But hope remains: steady and unshakeable. To him and to all those who are waiting, it is possible to apply what St. Paul said about Abraham: 'He has believed waiting against all hope' (ROM. 4, 18).

It is Him, the Lord, who lights in us this confidence and who is making you go ahead in life. One asks: How can this happen? It happens because we hold tight to three truths: God is Almighty, God loves me immensely, God is faithful to His promises. Then, this confidence lit by God of mercy; I do not feel alone, neither useless, nor abandoned, but I feel involved in a salvation destiny, that will end one day in Paradise with the Lord' s help.

I have talked about Psalms. The same sureness also vibrates in speeches, in the Saint' s books. I would like you can read a homily preached by St. Augustine at Hippone one day of Easter. He explains the Aleluya. The true Aleluya -- he says more or less -- we will sing it in Paradise because we will say it with a heart full of love. Here, the Aleluya we sing is the Aleluya of the hungry love. That is what is hope for Augustine: hunger of God' s love.

Someone can say: But, if I am a poor sinner? If I have so many sins? I will answer him as I have answered many years ago to an unknown lady who came to confess with me. She was discouraged, because – she said -- 'I had had a morally stormy life at my back'. 'May I ask you, madam -- I have told her -- how old are you?' - 'Thirty five years old' - 'Thirty five! But you can still live aother forty or fifty years and still make a lot of good things, madam. Then, regretful as you are, instead of thinking about the past, think about the future and change your life with God' s help. You will see'. And, in that occasion, I mentioned St. Francis of Sales, who speaks about 'our dear imperfections'. Imperfections, but dear. And I explained: 'Listen, madam, God detests faults, because they are faults. But, on the other hand, He loves, in a certain sense, our faults because they are an occasion for Him to show His mercy and for us to keep down, to keep humble, to understand and to have pity of the others faults.

You see that the Pope is enthusiastic and feels so much sympathy for this virtue of hope. I know that not all are agree with me. Nietzsche, German, is not agree. For him, hope is the 'the virtue of the weak'; and it would make of Christians as useless beings, irresolute, uncertain, lonely, people that resign to fight in favour of social progress. Others speak about 'alienation', that prevents the contribution of Christians from the human being promotion. But the Council doesn' t think the same. It said: 'The Christian message, not only is not exempting Christians from building a better world, but it is still obliging them with a more severe determination' ( Gaudium et spes nr. 34, cf. nr. 39 and 57, as well as the Message to the world of the Council Fathers, October 20^th, 1962). It is right. We are still more obliged than the others to be determined in this.

I also know that, in the past, in the course of history, there were situations, affirmations of Christians, of Catholics too much pessimistic regarding man. But such affirmations have been disapproved by the Church and forgotten thanks to a big group of glad and active Saints. Think about Don Bosco... It was written a book titled 'Don Bosco who laughs'. About St. Alphonse Mary of Ligouri, another book titled 'Monsignor has fun'. This pessimism was forgotten thanks to a Christian Humanism, to a group of ascetics writers to whom the French Saint-Beuve could called them 'les doux' (the sweet), especially thanks to a comprehensive theology. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, includes between the virtues the iucunditas, that is: it makes that the Christian can take occasion of what he is seeing, of what he is feeling, to be glad, to smile gladly (cf. II-II, q. 168 to 2). When I taught at school, I told my boys: 'He was glad that Irish bricklayer, who fell down from the second floor of the scaffold. He broke his legs. Lead to the hospital, the doctor and the religious nurse came. 'Poor you -- said the Nun – have you hurt yourself while falling down?' 'No, Mother, not rightly while falling down but arriving to land, I was hurt'. It is a great virtue to take profit from the legs to smile and to make the others smile. St. Thomas, and all the Theology, taking the smiling, playing jokes to become a real virtue, was agree with Christ, who has preached the Gospel, with St. Augustine, who has recommended ilaritas so much. He defeated pessimism, he has dressed of joy Christian life, and, first of all, he has invited us to be animated with every day joys, those good, understand, that the Lord never stops giving us even when they are mixed with some pain in the life.

When I was a boy, I read something on Andrew Carnegie, a Scot who went to America with his parents, where little by little, he became one of the richest men of the world. And he says: 'I was born in misery, however, I would not change my childhood memories for those of the rich ones, the millionaires children. What do they know about familiar joys, about the sweet figure of mum who reunites in herself the functions of baby-sitter, launderer, cook, teacher, angel and saint?'. The employee was Andrew Carnegie, employed in Pittsburg, with a wage of 56 miserable lires a month. One afternoon, the cashier has told him: 'Stop!' And Andrew Carnegie: 'Now, they are dismissing me'. On the contrary, after paying the others, the cashier told him: 'Andrew, I have watched your work; you are producing more than the others. I have decided to increase your payment from 56 up to 67 lires'. Carnegie came back home running. Mum was weeping of joy. 'You talk me about millions, but I… I have made millions. I would not change them for those 11 liras of increase earned that time'.

Necessary… with Christian hope these purely human joys are good, too, but the Church has not made of them something absolute. They are something, not everything; they are useful as means, they are not the supreme objective, they do not last always, but just a short time. 'Use them - wrote St. Paul – but why didn' t you use them?, because the scene of this world passes' (cf. 1 Cor 7, 31). And first, Jesus had said: 'Fist of all, look for the Kingdom of God and then the rest' (TM 6, 33).

In order to finish, I wanted to make a reference to a hope, that some people proclaim as Christian, but it is only Christian to a certain extent.

I will explain myself. In the Council, I have also voted the 'Message to the world' by the Council Fathers. We said there: 'The main task of deifying, does not exempt the Church from the task of humanizing. I also voted Gaudium et Spes; I was moved and excited when the Populorum Progressio appeared. I think the Church Teaching will never insist enough on presenting and recommending the solutions of the great problems of freedom, justice, peace, development. And Catholic lay people will never fight enough to solve these problems. It is a mistake, however, to affirm that political, economic and social liberation agrees with salvation in Jesus Christ; that the Regnum Dei identifies with the Regnum hominis; that Ubi Lenin, ibi Jerusalem.

In Fribourg, during the 85^th Katholikentag Meeting, it has been talked, few days ago, about the subject 'The future of hope'. It was talked about the 'world' to improve and the word 'future' fitted well. But if from hope for the 'world' one goes to which that affects the single souls, then it is necessary to speak about 'eternity', too.

In Ostia, at the sea shore, in a famous talk, Augustine and his mother Monica, '… forgetting the past and watching towards the future, they wondered what would it be the eternal life'. (Confess. IX nr. 10). This one is Christian hope; Pope John talked about that kind of hope and we also talk about it when we said with the Catechism: 'My God, I hope from your goodness... the eternal life and the necessary graces to deserve it with the good works that I must and want to do. My God, do not let me confused all the eternity'.

To the participants at the meeting of the World-wide European Congress of Religions for Peace

We address a warm greeting to the members of the World-wide European Congress of Religions for peace, gathered these days in Rome.

We thank for your visit because We appreciate your action at the service of peace in the world thanks to the prayer, the efforts of education for peace, to the reflection on the fundamental principles that must determine the relationships between men. So that peace, in fact, can be made, its necessity must be deeply experienced by the conscience, because it is born from a fundamentally spiritual conception of humanity. May this religious aspect take, not only to pardon and reconciliation, but also to the commitment in favour of friendship and collaboration between individuals and people.

May God Father, who loves all the men and who wanted to be Father of everybody, help you in this work!

In this moment, an example arrives to us from Camp David. The day before yesterday, at the American Congress, it burst an applause that we have also heard, when Carter mentioned Jesus' words: 'Blessed those who work for peace'. I would wish that applause, those words, entered the heart of all the Christians, specially inside us, Catholics, and make us become real 'promoters and constructors of peace'.

It is a special joy to have the pilgrimage from Kenya, sponsored by the Consolate Fathers. My prayerful greetings go back with you to all the members of your families, to all your loved ones. God bless Kenya!

In Gaudium et Spes , the Fathers did not include a sentence, that is also right and it is in the Code: marriage is a contract. At nr. 48, they wrote, however, agreement of love, a concept that, in the Council documents, is repeated several times. It is a right concept, that has origins in the Bible. Rachel' s father was agree with the marriage request but, said Jacob: ' First, you will have to work for seven years'. The Bible says that those years passed as a lightning, so much he loved her. I wish your love can be like that. The Council says that it is necessary to defend this love, because it is exposed to dangers. Defend it urgently. In the great things and in the little ones. * The Pope told this episode about a woman and his husband: 'We have been married for thirty years. When we were fiances or in the first years of marriage, whenever he made a trip, he brought me a gift, any small thing. Now, however, this happens few times'. It should happen, may that happen always.

To the participants of the International Meeting of Therapeutic Communities

I don' t want to make a great speech as it was announced on some newspaper. I will expose an experience simply mine. Two months ago, in Venice, a young Salesian Priest went to see me. He makes there, more or less, what in Rome makes Don Picchi, and exposed his difficulties to me. If I can remember well, that Priest wished that there were two concentric communities. He said: 'I am almost alone. It seems to me that I am not understood. It would be necessary that, around me and to whom are making this work, there was a whole chain of hearts that understood me. They are sick, not delinquents; they are poor young people to whom the circumstances of life have marginalized them. They need to be understood, as well as those who take care of them. Then, it is the other more restricted community: the therapeutic community'. That Priest explained me: 'These young people have been approached to drugs or because their family, without any reason, has perhaps not understood them, or because they did not find a centre that was interested on them, or because they did not have serious friendships. In order to recover them, it is enough to make them feel that they are loved. Afterwards, we will be able to send them back to their families, naturally with religion help. Drugs, often, depend on the fact that some young people cannot see clearly which is the purpose of life'. I have told him: 'Dear Don Gianni, I will try to help you'. Then, I have not been able to keep the promise because I was made a Pope. But what I could not make in Venice, I make it now here before the participants of this Congress that includes a little the whole world. It is necessary to support, to understand, to be near these people who sacrifice themselves, mainly, for the young people.

'My God, I love You with all my heart, everlasting good and our eternal happiness; and for love to You, I love my others as myself and I forgive the received offences. Lord, may I love You much more'. It is a very well-known prayer, full of Biblical texts. My mum has taught it to me when I was a little boy. My mum has taught it to me but I pray it even now, several times a day, and I will try to explain it to you word by word, as if I was a simple parish catechist.

We are in the 'third lamp of the sanctification' of which Pope John spoke: charity.

I love. First word. During Philosophy class, the professor told me: 'Do you know St. Mark' s bell tower? Yes? And then, pay attention, it means that the bell tower has almost made a trip towards you. It has left within you almost a mental picture of itself. However, do you love St. Mark' s bell tower? The thing turns round. It is you who are going towards it, pushed by that small mental portrait'. That is: to love means to go towards the beloved object with the mind, with the heart. It is also said by the 'Imitation of Christ ': who loves currit, volat, laetatur, runs, flies, he is glad, enjoys (l. III, CHAP. V, 4). Then, to love God is to go with the heart towards God. A very beautiful trip. As a boy, I was delighted with the trips narrated by Jules Verne ('Twenty thousands miles of submarine trip', 'The fur land', 'From the Earth to the Moon', 'Trip to the centre of the Earth', '80 days around the world', etc.). But the trip towards God is much more interesting. We read not on Verne' s novels but on the Saints' lives. Today, for example, we celebrate St. Vincent of Paul, a giant of charity, who has loved God more than a father and a mother are loved and he was given himself to the poor, the prisoners, the sick, the orphans. From another Saint, St. Peter Claver, I have read during these days, or better, read again, that the day he consecrated himself to God, he signed like this: 'Peter, slave of the black for ever'. These ones are interesting trips! A little bit difficult sometimes, right, but we have not to be stopped by difficulties. Jesus is on the Cross: do you want to kiss Him? Dear, you have to lean on the Cross and let you be pricked by some thorns of the crown, that Jesus has around His head (cf. SALES, Oeuvres, Annecy, t. XXI, page. 153). You cannot do what the good one of St. Peter who knew very well how to shout: 'Long life to Jesus' in the Tabor mountain, where there were glory and joy, but not even he was seen next to Jesus in the Calvary hill, where was danger and pain (cf. SALES, Oeuvres, t. XV, page. 140).

A little bit difficult and mysterious trip because I don't undertake this trip loving the Lord if the Lord does not take the initiative first: ' Nobody can come to me if the Father does not attract him' (Jn. 6, 44). And here, St. Augustine wonders: 'But then?, He is attracting me, where is the human freedom?'. Never to be afraid! But it is just God who has wanted, who has made, who has put the human freedom within us. He knows very well how to respect this freedom also if He wants to take us to the point where He wants us to arrive. Augustine has written: ' parum est voluntate, etiam voluptate traheris '. He says: 'He attracts you in such a way that you not only want but you want with pleasure, you enjoyed to be attracted!' (ST. AUGUSTINE, In Io. Evang. Tr. 26, 4). Respected freedom, mysterious trip.

I love You with all my heart. I emphasize that 'all'. Totalitarianism in politics is bad. However, in Religion our totalitarianism, regarding God, fits wonderfully.

It is written: 'You will love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your energies. These, my Commandments, may they be fixed in your heart. You will repeat them, you will say them at home, seated, on the street, when you are walking, when you go to bed in the evening, when you get up in the morning, you will write them on the doorway and on your home doors' (Deut. 6, 5-9). Do you understand?

That 'all' repeated with insistence and applied to all the circumstances of life, this 'all' really becomes a flag of the Christian maximalism. Not a little, but so much we have to give the Lord! He is too much great, He is too much made for us, God, He deserves too much so that we can throw Him sometimes as a poor Lazarus, only some breadcrumbs of our time and our heart. He is the infinite good and He will be our eternal happiness. Money, pleasures and careers of this world are only fragments of good. They are a moment of happiness. It is not wise to give this things so much from ourselves and, instead, to give God few from ourselves.

Then, it says: with all my heart over all the things. Now, it is made a confrontation between God and the things.

Let us pay attention: we have not to say: ' or God or the man'. We have to say: 'I have to love and God and the man'. But in different ways. The man: to love him never more than God, never against God, never at the same level of God.

The Bible speaks about Jacob as a Saint (Dan. 3, 35), loved by God (Mal. 1, 2; Rom. 9, 13). It shows him being determined during seven years of work in order to win over Rachel as wife; and he says: 'seven years that have passed as few days' (Gen. 29.20 ). He loved so much his fiancée.

Francis of Sales makes us a brief comment on these words and he says: 'Jacob loves Rachel with all his energies, but with all his energies he loves God, too, as God, over all the things and more than himself. Rachel, as his wife, over the other women and as himself. God, with a supremely love, absolutely supreme. Rachel, with a maritally supreme love (Oeuvres t. V, page 175). In other words, a love that has to be, non exclusive, but must prevail, over. And also, so many other things can be loved.

And then, for love to You, I love my others as myself. We are here before two inseparable loves: love to God and love to the others. French people say : Ce sont les frères jumeaux. They are like twin these two loves. They go together. God has wished like that. And, on the other hand, how can I do to love the others or, better, certain others if I don’ t love God, before? Some faces are not pleasant for me. Some persons have hurt me, they hate me, I must love them, too. I only risk if I extend over them the great love that I already feel for God. They wouldn' t deserve it, Lord, but they are Your little children, they are Christ' s brothers and sisters these persons, too. Like... and like, not only with words, but with facts. We will have a test at the end of our life and Jesus has already said which are the questions He will ask us: 'I was starved in my very little brothers, have you given me some food? I was sick, prisoner, have you come and visited me?' (cf. TM. 25, 34 ss.). These are the questions. We must answer them, here! Taking these words and another ones from the Bible, the Church has made two lists: seven works of temporal mercy and seven spiritual ones. They are not complete. It would be necessary to update them.

For example, hunger. Today, it s not referred to this or that one individual. There are populations that are hungry. We all remember the great Pope Paul VI' s great words: 'the hunger populations call in a dramatic way the opulence populations. The Church is shaking before this shout of anguish and is calling each one to reply the own brother with love' (Populorum progressio, 3). And then, here, justice is joined to charity because the Pope also says, in the Populorum progressio always: 'Private property is not an inalienable and absolute right for anybody. Nobody has the prerogative of being able to use goods exclusively for the own benefits beyond the need, when there are those who are dying because they have nothing' (Populorum progressio, 22). They are serious words, together with another ones. At the light of these words, not only nations, but also we, private, especially we from the Church, have to wonder: Have we really fulfil Christ' s precept: 'Love your neighbour as yourself?'.

And, Jesus' precept is also forgiveness, maybe the most difficult thing but it support us. It seems He has preferred forgiveness more than the divine cult. 'If you are before the altar to make your offer and there you remember your brother has something against you, leave your offer there, go first to reconcile with your brother, then, come back and make your offer' (Mt. 5, 23-24).

“Last words. But, am I wrong or is there a fifth degree, here? Yes... one boy, can he come here to help the Pope? Only one... one! I was saying... come here, come hear! In what class are you?” “Fifth degree” . “Well, then, pay attention: do you want to remain always in fifth degree or the next year in another class?” “Ah, for me it is the same but, ah, I' d want to remain in fifth because, oh, I leave, because when I will be going to first year I will leave my teacher but then...“ “Then, do you want to remain always in fifth or do you also want to go to first year?” “I' d want to remain always in fifth...“ “Ohhh... then this boy is different from the Pope because when I was in fourth I said: ohhh, if I were in fifth and when I was in fifth, I said: who knows if I will go to first year, if I am promoted. Understand? What is your name?” “Daniele.” “Well, Daniele. The Lord has put inside us a strong desire of progressing, of going ahead. Who is in first year says: but I will go to second. Who is in second says: but I will go to third. But also with the adults, you know? I have met a Captain who said: but, when will they be going to make me a Lieutenant Colonel and he wanted to go ahead, too. Everybody wants to go ahead and this... The Lord has given us a strong desire of progressing. Look: we began living in caverns, lake dwellings, then some cabins, then palaces, now skyscrapers. More and more ahead. First they went on foot, on horseback, on camel, then, the cart, then the train, now the airplane. More and more ahead. This is the law of progress. But not only progress when travelling. I said before, I don' t know if you has been paying attention, that the love to God is a kind of trip. Also here, it is necessary to progress! Lord, make me love You more and more. Never to stop. The Lord has told all the Christians: You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the Earth. Be perfect like my Father who is in Heaven is perfect. So, never to stop. To progress with God' s help, in the love of God. OK? Right, now I let you go. Have you seen he has helped me?”

Here, we have the sick. We wish he can heal. But we recommend so much their families and those who are taking care of them, they can take care a lot. The Pope, who are talking to you, has been eight times in the hospital, with four operations. It is not the same thing to have a nurse or another one. It is who does it with great care. It is not only appreciated the service; it is appreciated the way oneself is being served and being taken care. So, we recommend so much they can be helped with great charity, with great urge.

home | teachings

GCM 2001