Dear young people, listen within: Christ is knocking at the door of your heart.

Our Lady is always close to us, especially when we feel the weight of life with all its problems

I would like especially to mention you, the women, wives and mothers of Paraguay, who at great cost and sacrifice were able to lift up a country defeated, devastated and laid low by an abominable war. God bless your perseverance, God bless and encourage your faith, God bless the women of Paraguay, the most glorious women of America.

We need to be creative with young people. If they have no opportunities, they will get into drugs and be vulnerable to suicide.

Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples is reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence.

Today too, amid so much darkness, we need to see the light of hope and to be men and women who bring hope to others. To protect creation, to protect every man and every woman, to look upon them with tenderness and love, is to open up a horizon of hope; it is to let a shaft of light break through the heavy clouds; it is to bring the warmth of hope!

Not to share one’s goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life. It is not our goods that we possess, but theirs.