Pope Francis met this week with some 70,000 altar servers, ranging in age from 13 to 23, and hailing from 19 countries, with the majority from Germany. They were participating in the 12th International Pilgrimage for Altar Boys and Girls.
After a brief homily, the Holy Father answered questions from the youth.
Here are five take-aways:
Making peace begins with little things. For example, at home after a quarrel, do I go off by myself – let me ask you – and act hurt, or do I make an effort to go back and reach out? Do I know how to make peace with small gestures? Am I willing to ask myself in every situation: “What would Jesus do in my place?” If we can do this, if we really put it into practice, we will bring Christ’s peace to our everyday lives.
Remember: the more you give yourself to others, the more you will get back in personal fulfilment and true happiness!
[H]ere is what I would I say. Try to know and love the Lord Jesus more and more – I want to repeat this: try to know and love the Lord more and more, encountering him in prayer, at Mass, in reading the Gospel, in the faces of the lowly and the poor. Try also to be friends, with no strings attached, to all those around you, so that a ray of Jesus’ light can shine on them through your own heart in love with him.
I would say that faith is like the air we breathe. We don’t think, with every breath we take, how necessary air is, but when it isn’t there, or it isn’t clean, we realize right away how important it is! Faith helps us to grasp the meaning of life: that there is Someone who loves us infinitely and that that Someone is God. He infinitely loves me.
You know, the path to holiness is not for the lazy: It requires effort.
And today we celebrate...