The true Christian can nurture a trustful optimism, because he is certain of not walking alone. In sending us Jesus, the eternal Son made man, God has drawn near to each of us. In Christ he has become our travelling companion.

What really matters in life is that we are loved by Christ and that we love Him in return. In comparison to the love of Jesus, everything else is secondary. And, without the love of Jesus, everything is useless.

This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops.

Believers know that the presence of evil is always accompanied by the presence of good, by grace... Where evil grows, there the hope for good also grows... In the love that pours forth from the heart of Christ, we find hope for the future of the world. Christ has redeemed the world: "By his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)

In the past, it was possible to destroy a village, a town, a region, even a country. Now it is the whole planet that has come under threat. This fact should compel everyone to face a basic moral consideration; from now on, it is only through a conscious choice and then deliberate policy that humanity will survive.

It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.

Love consists of a commitment which limits one's freedom - it is a giving of the self, and to give oneself means just that: to limit one's freedom on behalf of another.