And there is this fact of the twelve baskets: why twelve? What does it mean? Twelve is the number of the tribes of Israel, symbolically it represents all the people. And this tells us that when food is shared equally, with solidarity, nobody is devoid of the necessary, each community can meet the needs of the poorest. Human ecology and environmental ecology go hand in hand.

All walls fall. Today, tomorrow or in 100 years, they will fall. It's not a solution. The wall isn't a solution. In this moment, Europe is in difficult, it's true. We have to be intelligent, and whoever comes...that migrant flow. It's not easy to find solutions, but with dialogue between nations they should be found. Walls are never solutions. But bridges are, always, always.

The tyranny of relativism is the spiritual poverty of our time

Let yourselves be led by the Holy Spirit, with freedom and, please, do not cage the Holy Spirit

Like Mary, may we nurture the light born within us at Christmas. May we carry it everywhere in our daily lives.

Today, we need a Church capable of walking at people's side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey.

Sometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord’s wounds at arm’s length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people.