Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. So protect your families! See in them your country’s greatest treasure and nourish them always by prayer and the grace of the sacraments.

The root of this possibility of doing good - that we all have - is in creation.

I have heard it said that families with many children and high birth rates are among the cause of poverty. It seems to me a simplistic opinion. I can say that the main cause of poverty is an economic system that has removed the person from the center.

My choices, including those related to the day-to-day aspects of life, like the use of a modest car, are related to a spiritual discernment that responds to a need that arises from looking at things, at people and from reading the signs of the times. Discernment in the Lord guides me in my way of governing.

When we are generous in welcoming people and sharing something with them-some food, a place in our homes, our time-not only do we no longer remain poor: we are enriched. I am well aware that when someone needing food knocks at your door, you always find a way of sharing food; as the proverb says, one can always 'add more water to the beans'! Is it possible to add more water to the beans?...Always?...And you do so with love, demonstrating that true riches consist not in materials things, but in the heart!

The fruits of this profound union with Jesus are marvelous: our whole being is transformed by the grace of the Holy Spirit: soul, intelligence, will, affections and even the body, because we are united in body and spirit.

Christian hope is not a ghost and it does not deceive. It is a theological virtue and therefore, ultimately, a gift from God that cannot be reduced to optimism, which is only human. God does not mislead hope; God cannot deny himself. God is all promise.