Dear young people, Christ asks you to be wide awake and alert, to see the things in life that really matter.

"Do you love me?"; "Are you my friend?". The One who scrutinizes hearts (cf. Rom 8:27), makes himself a beggar of love and questions us on the one truly essential issue, a premiss and condition for feeding his sheep, his lambs, his Church. May every ministry be based on this intimacy with the Lord; living from him is the measure of our ecclesial service which is expressed in the readiness to obey, to humble ourselves, as we heard in the Letter to the Philippians, and for the total gift of self.

The great challenge facing us today is to learn once again how to talk to one another, not simply how to generate and consume information.

In imitation of our Master, we Christians are called to confront the poverty of our brothers and sisters, to touch it, to make it our own and to take practical steps to alleviate it.

Allow me to draw your attention to the value and beauty of marriage. The complementarity of man and woman, the vertex of the divine creation, is being questioned by gender ideology, in the name of a freer and more just society. The difference between man and woman is not meant to stand in opposition, or to subordinate, but is for the sake of communion and generation, always 'in the image and likeness of God.'

Charity that does not change the situation of the poor isn't enough.

If Jesus is to become the center of our life, we need to spend time in His presence, before the Tabernacle.