“God wants something from you. God hopes in you. God comes to break down all our fences. He comes to open the doors of our lives, our dreams, our ways of seeing things. God comes to break open everything that keeps you closed in.
“He is encouraging you to dream. He wants to make you see that, with you, the world can be different. For the fact is, unless you offer the best of yourselves, the world will never be different.
“The times we live in do not call for young ‘couch potatoes’ but for young people with shoes, or better, boots laced. It only takes players on the first string, and it has no room for bench-warmers. Today’s world demands that you be a protagonist of history because life is always beautiful when we choose to live it fully, when we choose to leave a mark. History today calls us to defend our dignity and not to let others decide our future.
“As he did on Pentecost, the Lord wants to work one of the greatest miracles we can experience; he wants to turn your hands, my hands, our hands, into signs of reconciliation, of communion, of creation. He wants your hands to continue building the world of today. And he wants to build that world with you. You might say to me: ‘Father, but I have my limits, I am a sinner, what can I do?’ When the Lord calls us, he doesn’t worry about what we are, what we have been, or what we have done or not done. Quite the opposite.
“When he calls us, he is thinking about everything we have to give, all the love we are capable of spreading. His bets are on the future, on tomorrow. Jesus is pointing you to the future.”
– From the address at the prayer vigil on July 30
The Gospel’s blank pages
“It might be said that the Gospel, the living book of God’s mercy that must be continually read and reread, still has many blank pages left. It remains an open book that we are called to write in the same style, by the works of mercy we practise. Let me ask you this: What are the pages of your books like? Do you write them each day? Do you write them a little bit here, a little bit there? Are they blank? May the Mother of God help us in this.
“May she, who fully welcomed the word of God into her life (cf. Lk 8:20-21), give us the grace to be living writers of the Gospel. May our Mother of Mercy teach us how to take concrete care of the wounds of Jesus in our brothers and sisters in need, those close at hand and those far away, the sick and the migrant, because by serving those who suffer we honour the flesh of Christ.
“May the Virgin Mary help us to spend ourselves completely for the good of the faithful entrusted to us, and to show concern for one another as true brothers and sisters in the communion of the Church, our holy Mother.
“Dear brothers and sisters, each of us holds in his or her heart a very personal page of the book of God’s mercy. It is the story of our own calling, the voice of the love that attracted us and transformed our life, leading us to leave everything at his word and to follow him (cf. Lk 5:11).
“Today let us gratefully rekindle the memory of his call, which is stronger than any resistance and weariness on our part.
“As we continue this celebration of the Eucharist, the centre of our lives, let us thank the Lord for having entered through our closed doors with his mercy, for calling us, like Thomas, by name, and for giving us the grace to continue writing his Gospel
of love.”
– From the homily at Mass at the St John II Shrine on July 30
The narcotic of success
“Dear young friends, don’t be ashamed to bring everything to the Lord in Confession, especially your weaknesses, your struggles and your sins. He will surprise you with his forgiveness and his peace. Don’t be afraid to say ‘yes’ to him with all your heart, to respond generously and to follow him! Don’t let your soul grow numb, but aim for the goal of a beautiful love which also demands sacrifice. Say a firm ‘no’ to the narcotic of success at any cost and the sedative of worrying only about yourself.”
– From the homily at Mass at the St John Paul II Shrine on July 30
Falling at Mass
“I was looking at the Madonna and I forgot about the step. I had the thurible in my hand and I just let myself fall. If I had tried to resist, then there would have been consequences.”
– During an in-flight press conference on the way home to Rome on July 31, Francis discusses his well-publicised fall during Mass on July 28 at the Jasna Góra Monastery
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