We need to avoid the spiritual sickness of a church that is wrapped up in its own world: when a church becomes like this, it grows sick.

When the Lord wants to give us a mission, wants to give us a task, He prepares us. He prepares us to do it well...What is important is the whole journey by which we arrive at the mission the Lord entrusts to us...when the Lord gives a mission, He always has us enter into a process, a process of purification, a process of discernment, a process of obedience, a process of prayer.

There is so much indifference in the face of suffering. May we overcome indifference with concrete acts of charity.

Be close to the poor and to those in need, so as to touch in their flesh the wounded flesh of Jesus. Please, draw near to them!

Only by becoming poor ourselves, by stripping away our complacency, will we be able to identify with the least of our brothers and sisters.

I know married Catholics in a second union who go to church, who go to church once or twice a year and say I want communion, as if joining in Communion were an award. It's a work towards integration, all doors are open, but we cannot say, 'from here on they can have communion.'

The vocation of being a 'protector' [. . .] means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us [. . .] In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God’s gifts!