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Pope Benedict XVI Quotes - Page 6

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Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.

Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.

Pope Benedict XVI
Wish, Trying, Too Much
Pope Benedict XVI (2004). “Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions”, p.116, Ignatius Press

Making the sign of the Cross - as we will do during the Blessing - means saying a visible and public "yes" to the One who died and rose for us, to God who in the humility and weakness of his love is the Almighty, stronger than all the power and intelligence of the world.

Pope Benedict XVI
Faith, Inspiration, Humility
Pope Benedict XVI's Angelus, w2.vatican.va. September 11, 2005.

Rediscover the joy of believing.

Pope Benedict XVI
Believe, Joy
Apostolic Letter, www.banjuldiocese.gm.

When, as today, there is a market in human organs, when fetuses are produced to make spare organs available, or to make progress in research and preventive medicine, many regard the human content of these practices as implicit. But the contempt for man that underlies it, when man is used and abused, leads -- like it or not -- to a descent into hell.

Pope Benedict XVI
Men, Practice, Used And Abused
"Cardinal Ratzinger - Pope Benedict XVI on Life, Faith, Family and Freedom" by John-Henry Westen, www.lifesitenews.com. April 19, 2005.

Music, great music, distends the spirit, arouses profound emotions and almost naturally invites us to raise our minds and hearts to God in all situations of human existence, the joyful and the sad. Music can become prayer.

Pope Benedict XVI
Faith, Prayer, Inspiration

The experience of [the African] bishops is that evangelization itself should be foremost, that the God of Jesus Christ must be known, believed in and loved, and that hearts must be converted if progress is to be made on social issues and reconciliation is to begin, and if - for example - AIDS is to be combated by realistically facing its deeper causes and the sick are to be given the loving care they need. Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable.

Pope Benedict XVI
Jesus, Heart, Issues

Advent's intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church's year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart's memory so that it can discern the star of hope.

Pope Benedict XVI
Stars, Memories, Children

It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.

Pope Benedict XVI
Suffering, Fleeing, Unions

We are still awaiting Easter; we are not yet standing in the full light but walking toward it full of trust.

Pope Benedict XVI
Easter, Light, Stills
Pope Benedict XVI (1998). “Milestones: Memoirs, 1927-1977”, p.6, Ignatius Press

God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world: peace in the hearts of all men and women and peace among the nations of the Earth.

Pope Benedict XVI
Heart, Men, World
"The prayer of Pope Benedict XVI at Ground Zero". www.catholicworldreport.com. September 11, 2015.

The unbreakable bond between love of God and love of neighbor is emphasized. One is so closely connected to the other that to say that we love God becomes a lie if we are closed to our neighbor or hate him altogether. Saint John's words should rather be interpreted to mean that love of neighbor is a path that leads to the encounter with God, and that closing our eyes to our neighbor also blinds us to God.

Pope Benedict XVI
Hate, Lying, Mean

We celebrate [Easter] because now, thanks to the risen Lord, it is definitively established that reason is stronger than unreason, truth stronger than lies, love stronger than death.

Pope Benedict XVI
Easter, Lying, Stronger

Freedom is not only a gift, but a summons to personal responsibility.

Pope Benedict XVI
Responsibility, Personal Responsibility

The "door of faith" (Acts 14:27) is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God and offering entry into his Church. It is possible to cross that threshold when the word of God is proclaimed and the heart allows itself to be shaped by transforming grace. To enter through that door is to set out on a journey that lasts a lifetime.

Pope Benedict XVI
Faith, Inspiration, Heart

Each one of us needs time and space for recollection, meditation and calmness.... Thanks be to God that this is so! In fact, this need tells us that we are not made for work alone, but also to think, to reflect or even simply to follow with our minds and our hearts a tale, a story in which to immerse ourselves, in a certain sense to lose ourselves to find ourselves subsequently enriched.

Pope Benedict XVI
Faith, Inspiration, Heart

We become new if we let ourselves be grasped and shaped by the new Man, Jesus Christ. He is the new Man par excellence. In him the new human existence became reality and we can truly become new if we deliver ourselves into his hands and let ourselves be moulded by him.

Pope Benedict XVI
Jesus, Reality, Men
Pope Benedict XVI (2012). “Holy Days: Meditations on the Feasts, Fasts, and Other Solemnities of the Church”, p.35, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

The goods of creation belong to humanity as a whole. Yet the current pace of environmental exploitation is seriously endangering the supply of certain natural resources not only for the present generation, but above all for generations to come.

Pope Benedict XVI
Humanity, Environmental, Generations

If in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be 'devout' and to perform my 'religious duties', then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely 'proper', but loveless.

Pope Benedict XVI
Religious, Desire, Failing

I'm not a man who constantly thinks up jokes.

Pope Benedict XVI
Men, Thinking, Jokes
Interview with German media, press.vatican.va. August 13, 2006.

Nourishment is a factor which touches on the fundamental right to life.

Pope Benedict XVI
Environmental, Fundamentals, Sustainability

The more ardent the love for the Eucharist in the hearts of the Christian people, the more clearly will they recognize the goal of all mission: to bring Christ to others. Not just a theory or a way of life inspired by Christ, but the gift of his very person. Anyone who has not shared the truth of love with his brothers and sisters has not yet given enough.

Pope Benedict XVI
Christian, Brother, Heart

Guilt must not be allowed to fester in the silence of the soul, poisoning it from within. It needs to be confessed. Through confession we bring it into the light, we place it within Christ's purifying love. In confession, the Lord washes our soiled feet over and over again and prepares us for table fellowship with him.

Pope Benedict XVI
Light, Feet, Silence

It is necessary not only to relieve the gravest needs but to go to their roots, proposing measures that will give social, political and economic structures a more equitable and solidaristic configuration.

Pope Benedict XVI
Roots, Giving, Justice

Men and women cannot rest content with a superficial and unquestioning exchange of skeptical opinions and experiences of life - all of us are in search of truth and we share this profound yearning today more than ever.

Pope Benedict XVI
Faith, Inspiration, Men

The evangelization of the person and of human communities depends totally on this encounter with Jesus Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI
Jesus, Community, Encounters

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