I want the Church to go out onto the streets, I want us to resist everything worldly, everything static, everything comfortable...eve rything that might make us closed in on ourselves.

Only we big sinners have this grace of knowing what salvation really means.

Don't be afraid to go against the current, when they want to steal our hope, when they propose rotten values to us, values like food that has gone bad-and when food has gone bad it makes us sick, these values make us sick. We have to go against the current! And you, young people, be the first: Go against the grain and be proud of going against the grain. Go on, be brave and go against the current! And be proud of doing it!

We too need to protect, guide, and encourage our young people, helping them to build a society worthy of their great spiritual and cultural heritage. Specifically, we need to see each child as a gift to be welcomed, cherished, and protected. And we need to care for our young people, not allowing them to be robbed of hope and condemned to life on the streets.

Lent comes providentially to reawaken us, to shake us from our lethargy.

I would like that all of us, after these days of grace, might have the courage - the courage - to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord: to build the Church on the Blood of the Lord, which is shed on the Cross, and to profess the one glory, Christ Crucified. In this way, the Church will go forward.

Human trafficking is a scourge, a crime against the whole of humanity. It is time to join forces and work together to free its victims and to eradicate this crime that affects all of us, from individual families to the worldwide community.