Each encounter with Jesus changes our life.

The great challenge facing us today is to learn once again how to talk to one another, not simply how to generate and consume information.

We are called to reach out to those who find themselves in the existential peripheries of our societies and to show particular solidarity with the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters: the poor, the disabled, the unborn and the sick, migrants and refugees, the elderly and the young who lack employment.

When we give help to the poor, we are not doing the work of aid agencies 'in a Christian way'. Those are good, it is a decent thing to do - aid work is good and quite human - but it is not Christian poverty, which St. Paul desires of us and preaches to us. Christian poverty is that I give of my own, and not of that which is left over - I give even that, which I need for myself, to the poor person, because I know that he enriches me. Why does the poor person enrich me? Because Jesus Himself told us that He is in the poor person.

The world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love.

Whoever says he is without sin is a liar or is blind.

Dear young people, the Church expects great things of you and your generosity. Don’t be afraid to aim high.