Like so many pilgrims before us, we kneel in wonder and adoration before the ineffable mystery which. was accomplished here... In This Child - the Son who is given to us - we find rest for our souls and the true bread that never fails - the Eucharistic Bread foreshadowed even in the name of this town: Bethlehem, the house of bread. God lies hidden in the Child; divinity lies hidden in the Bread of Life

The New York Marathon: a fantastic event.

My desire is for the young people of the entire world to come closer to Mary. She is the bearer of an indelible youthfulness and beauty that never wanes. May young people have increasing confidence in her and may they entrust their lives to her.

Today, the scale and horror of modern warfare - whether nuclear or not - makes it totally unacceptable as a means of settling differences between nations. War should belong to the tragic past, to history; it should find no place on humanity's agenda for the future.

For by his incarnation the Son of God united himself in a certain way with every man. He labored with human hands... and loved with a human heart. Born of Mary the Virgin, he truly became one of us.

Take away from love the fullness of self surrender, the completeness of personal commitment, and what remains will be a total denial and negation of it.

Jesus himself has shown us by his own example that prayer and fasting are the first and most effective weapons against the forces of evil.