The challenge of life is to learn how to love

Before all else, the Gospel invites us to respond to the God of love who saves us, to see God in others and to go forth from ourselves to seek the good of others.

When I confess a couple who have kids, a married couple, I ask, 'how many children do you have?' Some get worried and think the priest will ask why I don't have more. I would make a second question, 'Do you play with your children?' The majority say, 'but father, I have no time. I work all day.'

Being Christian is not just obeying orders but means being in Christ, thinking like him, acting like him, loving like him; it means letting him take possession of our life and change it, transform it, and free it from the darkness of evil and sin. ... Let us show the joy of being children of God, the freedom that living in Christ gives us which is true freedom, the freedom that saves us from the slavery of evil, of sin and of death!

On a positive note, we must reaffirm the right of children to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity.

Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God's love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection.

There are people who are afraid to go to confession, forgetting that they will not encounter a severe judge there, but the immensely merciful Father.