Nothing, how little so ever it be, if it is suffered for God's sake, can pass without merit in the sight of God.
--Thomas a Kempis

The Holy Father's prayer intentions for March are:

General: Contribution of Women. That the whole world may recognize the contribution of women to the development of society.

Mission: Persecuted Christians. That the Holy Spirit may grant perseverance to those who suffer discrimination, persecution, or death for the name of Christ, particularly in Asia.

Pro-Life Prayer Intention

She Who Kneels Before God Can Stand Before Anyone

We are God's Servants

On October 3, 2010, The Holy Father visited the city of Palermo and celebrated an outdoor mass at Foro Italico Umberto I for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. Part of his homily focused on Jesus' parable about the servant returning from the fields who is asked to continue to serve the master rather than to take his rest.

"The second part of today's Gospel (Luke 17:7-10) presents another teaching, a teaching about humility that, nevertheless, is closely connected with faith. Jesus invites us to be humble and offers the example of a servant who works in the fields. When he returns home the master asks him to continue working. According to the mentality of Jesus' time the master had every right to do this. The servant owed the master his complete availability; and the master did not think himself obligated to him if he carried out his orders. Jesus makes us aware that, before God, we find ourselves in a similar situation: we are God's servants; we are not his creditors but we are always debtors in relation to him because we owe him everything, because everything is his gift. Accepting and doing his will is the way that we must live every day, in every moment of our life. Before God we must not present ourselves as those who believe that they have done a service and deserve a great recompense. This is an illusion that can arise in everyone, even in persons who do a much work in the Lord's service, in the Church. We must instead be aware that we never do enough for God. We must say, as Jesus suggests: 'We are useless servants. We did what we were obliged to do' (Luke 17:10). This is an attitude of humility that truly puts us in our place and permits the Lord to be very generous with us. In fact, in another passage of the Gospel, he promises us that 'he will gird himself, have us sit at table and will serve us' (cf. Luke 12:37). Dear Friends, if we do the Lord's will every day, with humility, without expecting anything from him, Jesus himself will serve us, help us, encourage us, give us strength and peace."

-- October 3, 2010 homily on the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time given at an outdoor mass at Palermo's Foro Italico Umberto I.

From the Zenit.

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

Faithfulness to Prayer Gradually Changes Us

This installment is from the mass of beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman which took place on September 19, 2010. The Holy Father spoke of the Cardinal Newman's understanding on the role of prayer in transforming us into the divine likeness.

"Cardinal Newman’s motto, Cor ad cor loquitur, or 'Heart speaks unto heart', gives us an insight into his understanding of the Christian life as a call to holiness, experienced as the profound desire of the human heart to enter into intimate communion with the Heart of God. He reminds us that faithfulness to prayer gradually transforms us into the divine likeness. As he wrote in one of his many fine sermons, 'a habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God and the unseen world in every season, in every place, in every emergency – prayer, I say, has what may be called a natural effect in spiritualizing and elevating the soul. A man is no longer what he was before; gradually … he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and become imbued with fresh principles' (Parochial and Plain Sermons, iv, 230-231)."

-- September 19, 2010 homily at the mass of beatification for John Henry Cardinal Newman.

From Zenit.

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

Human Rights Work Must be based on Universal Principles

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 September 8, 2010 address to members of the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. During the address, the Holy Father exhorted his listeners to base their human rights work on universal principles which are based on the natural dignity of every human being.

"On different occasions I have pointed out the risks associated with relativism in the area of values, rights and duties. If these were to lack an objective rational foundation, common to all peoples, and were based exclusively on particular cultures, legislative decisions or court judgments, how could they offer a solid and long-lasting ground for supranational institutions such as the Council of Europe, and for your own task within that prestigious institution? How could a fruitful dialogue among cultures take place without common values, rights and stable, universal principles understood in the same way by all Members States of the Council of Europe? These values, rights and duties are rooted in the natural dignity of each person, something which is accessible to human reasoning. The Christian faith does not impede, but favors this search, and is an invitation to seek a supernatural basis for this dignity.

I am convinced that these principles, faithfully maintained, above all when dealing with human life, from conception to natural death, with marriage -- rooted in the exclusive and indissoluble gift of self between one man and one woman -- and freedom of religion and education, are necessary conditions if we are to respond adequately to the decisive and urgent challenges that history presents to each one of you."

-- September 8, 2010 address to members of the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

From Zenit.

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.

Why was Eve formed from Adam's Rib?

In a new feature, messages from the Holy Father will be 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 December 30, 2009. His address focused on Peter Lombard and the impact that this Twelfth Century theologian had and continues to have especially through his seminal work known as The Sentences. In this quote, Benedict XVI illustrates the reason that here is still interest today in Peter Lombard's work.

"Inspired by St Augustine's Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Peter wonders why woman was created from man's rib and not from his head or his feet. And Peter explains: 'She was formed neither as a dominator nor a slave of man but rather as his companion' (Sentences 3, 18, 3). Then, still on the basis of the Patristic teaching he adds: 'The mystery of Christ and of the Church is represented in this act. Just as, in fact, woman was formed from Adam's rib while he slept, so the Church was born from the sacraments that began to flow from the side of Christ, asleep on the Cross, that is, from the blood and water with which we are redeemed from sin and cleansed of guilt' (Sentences 3, 18, 4). These are profound reflections that still apply today when the theology and spirituality of Christian marriage have considerably deepened the analogy with the spousal relationship of Christ and his Church."

-- Wednesday Audience, December 30, 2009.

From Zenit.

Family is an Icon of God

In a new feature, messages from the Holy Father will be 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 excerpts taken from the Holy Father's address during the praying of the Angelus on the Feast of the Holy Family on December 27, 2009. The Gospel reading upon which part of his address is based on the account of the twelve-year-old Jesus remaining behind in the Temple unbeknownst to his parents.

"God wished to reveal Himself by being born in a human family, and hence the human family has become an icon of God."

"God is Trinity. He is communion of love, and the family - with all the difference that exists between the Mystery of God and His human creature - is an expression thereof which reflects the unfathomable mystery of God-Love. ... The human family is, in a certain sense, the icon of the Trinity because of the love between its members and the fruitfulness of that love."

"Jesus' decision to remain in the Temple was above all the fruit of his intimate relationship with the Father, but also the fruit of the education received from Mary and Joseph."

"Here we may catch a glimpse of the authentic meaning of Christian education. It is the result of a collaboration that must always be sought between the educators and God. The Christian family is aware that children are God's gift and project. Hence it cannot consider them as it own possessions but, serving God's plan through them, is called to educate them in the greatest of freedoms which is that of saying 'yes' to God in order to accomplish His will."

"God, by having come into the world in the bosom of a family, shows that this institution is a sure way to meet and know Him, and a permanent call to work for the loving unity of all people. Thus, one of the greatest services which we as Christians can offer our fellow men and women is to show them the serene and solid witness of a family founded upon marriage between a man and a woman, defending it and protecting it, because it is of supreme importance for the present and future of humankind."

"In truth, the family is the best school in which to learn to live the values that dignify individuals and make peoples great. There too sufferings and joys are shared, as everyone feels cloaked in the affection that reigns in the home by the mere fact of being members of the same family."

-- Sunday Angelus, December 27, 2009.

From VIS.

God loves to light Little Lights

In a new feature, messages from the Holy Father will be 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 taken from the Holy Father's Christmas homily.

"At first, beside the manger in Bethlehem, that 'us' was almost imperceptible to human eyes. As the Gospel of Saint Luke recounts, it included, in addition to Mary and Joseph, a few lowly shepherds who came to the cave after hearing the message of the Angels. The light of that first Christmas was like a fire kindled in the night. All about there was darkness, while in the cave there shone the true light 'that enlightens every man' (Jn 1:9). And yet all this took place in simplicity and hiddenness, in the way that God works in all of salvation history. God loves to light little lights, so as then to illuminate vast spaces. Truth, and Love, which are its content, are kindled wherever the light is welcomed; they then radiate in concentric circles, as if by contact, in the hearts and minds of all those who, by opening themselves freely to its splendor, themselves become sources of light. Such is the history of the Church: she began her journey in the lowly cave of Bethlehem, and down the centuries she has become a People and a source of light for humanity. Today too, in those who encounter that Child, God still kindles fires in the night of the world, calling men and women everywhere to acknowledge in Jesus the 'sign' of his saving and liberating presence and to extend the us" 'of those who believe in Christ to the whole of mankind."

-- Christmas homily, December 25, 2009.

From ZENIT.

Study with a "Little Soul"

In a new feature, messages from the Holy Father will be 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 first installment is from the Holy Father's meditation during the celebration of Vespers with students in the Roman universities. This is an Advent tradition that was held this year on December 17th.

"At this point, let us ask ourselves: who was there on that Christmas night in the grotto of Bethlehem? Who welcomed newborn Wisdom? ... Not the doctors of law, the scribes or the wise men. Mary and Joseph were there, so were the shepherds. What does this mean? ... Does it mean that study serves no purpose? Even that it is harmful, counterproductive to a knowledge of the truth?

The history of two thousand years of Christianity excludes this hypothesis, and suggests the right answer. We must study, deepen our knowledge, yet while maintaining a 'little' soul, a humble and simple spirit like that of Mary, 'Seat of Wisdom'.

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In that grotto each of us can discover the truth about God and about man. In that Child, born of the Virgin, these two truths came together. Man's longing for eternal life softened the heart of God, Who deigned to assume the human condition".

-- From meditation given during the celebration of Vespers with students of Roman universities, December 17, 2009.

From the Vatican Information Service.