Have a Travel Companion for your Spiritual Journey

Messages from the Holy Father are featured on a regular basis. These words of wisdom will include quotes from addresses by the Holy Father along with a link to learn more about the full text and context of the address.

This installment is from the Holy Father's Wednesday Audience on August 25, 2010. Benedict XVI offered the following comments about having a special saint for you journey through the Christian life as a way of introduction to his address on St. Augustine. The Holy Father indicated that St. Augustine has been one of his traveling companions as he has had the opportunity to become familiar with this doctor of the Church's writings through time spent in study and prayer.

"In the life of each one of us there are very dear persons, to whom we feel particularly close; some are already in God's arms, others still share with us the journey of life: they are our parents, relatives, educators. They are persons to whom we have done good or from whom we have received good. They are persons we know we can count on. However, it is also important to have "travel companions" on the journey of our Christian life: I am thinking of a spiritual director, a confessor, persons with whom we can share the experience of faith, but I am also thinking of the Virgin Mary and of the saints. Each one should have a saint that is familiar to him, to whom he feels close with prayer and intercession, but also to imitate him or her. Hence, I would like to invite you to know the saints better, beginning with the one whose name you bear, by reading his life, his writings. You can be certain that they will become good guides to love the Lord ever more and valid aids for your human and Christian growth."

-- Wednesday Audience, August 25, 2010.

From Zenit.