Pope Benedict XVI: "The intimate structure of her praying song is, therefore, praise, thanksgiving, grateful joy. But this personal witness is not solitary and intimate, purely individualistic, because the Virgin Mother is conscious of having a mission to accomplish for humanity and her story is inserted within the history of salvation. And thus she can say: "His mercy extends from generation to generation over those who fear him" (v 50). With this praise of the Lord, Our Lady gives voice to all the redeemed creatures who in her "fiat", and thus in the figure of Jesus born of the Virgin, find the mercy of God. ..." (General Audience, 1 February 2006). Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Pope Benedict XVI: "The seat of Rome, after these migrations by St Peter, was thus recognized as that of the successor of Peter, and the "chair" of its bishop represents that of the Apostle instructed by Christ to graze his whole flock. The most ancient Fathers of the Church attest to this, as for example St Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, but who came from Asia Minor, who in his treatise Against Heresies, describes the Church of Rome as the "greatest and most ancient, known by all; ... founded and established in Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul"; and he adds: "With this Church, because of her eminent superiority, must be in accord the universal Church, that is, the faithful everywhere" (III, 3, 2-3). Tertullian, a little later, for his part affirms: "How blessed is this Church of Rome! It was the Apostles themselves who, in pouring out their blood, gave to her the doctrine in its totality" (The prescription of heretics, 36). The chair of the Bishop of Rome represents, therefore, not only his service to the Roman community but also his mission of guiding the entire People of God. ." (General Audience, 22 February 2006). Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Pope Benedict XVI: "All the other titles attributed to Our Lady find their foundation in her vocation to be the Mother of the Redeemer, the human creature elected by God to realise the plan of salvation, centered on the great mystery of the incarnation of the divine Verb. In these festive days we have stopped to contemplate in the crib the representation of the Nativity. At the centre of this scene we find the Virgin Mother who offers the Baby Jesus to the contemplation of all those who come to adore the Saviour: the shepherds, the poor people of Bethlehem, the Magi come from the East. Later, on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, it will be the elderly Simeon and the prophetess Anna who will receive the little Child from the hands of his Mother and adore him. The devotion of the Christian people has always considered the birth of Jesus and the divine motherhood of Mary as two aspects of the same mystery of the incarnation of the divine Verb and so has never considered the Nativity as a thing of the past. We are "contemporaries" of the shepherds, of the Magi, of Simeon and Anna, and as we go with them we are full of joy, because God wanted to be the God with us and He has a mother, who is our mother." (General Audience, 2 January 2008). Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Pope Benedict XVI: "From the love for Christ is born love towards persons and also towards all God's creatures. Here is another characteristic trait of Francis' spirituality: the sense of universal brotherhood and love for created matter, which inspired his famous Canticle of creatures. It is a very timely message. As I recalled in my recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate, only a development that respects creation and does not damage the environment is sustainable (cf n 48-52) and in the Message for the World Day of Peace this year I underlined that the construction of a solid peace is also linked to respect for created matter. Francis reminds us that in creation is unfolded the wisdom and benevolence of the Creator. Nature is for him understood precisely as a language in which God speaks with us, in which reality becomes transparent and we can speak of God and with God. Dear friends, Francis was a great saint and a joyful man. His simplicity, his humility, his faith, his love for Christ, his goodness towards every man and every woman made him happy in every situation. Indeed, there subsists an intimate and indissoluble relationship between holiness and joy. A French writer said that in the world there is only one sadness: that of not being saints, that is, of not being close to God. Looking at the witness of St Francis, we understand that this is the secret of true happiness: to become saints, close to God!" (General Audience, 27 January 2010) Music: To the Ends of the Earth by Fr Rob Galea - ℗ 2011 Robert Galea - used with permission. Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Papa Benedetto: "Cari amici, Francesco è stato un grande santo e un uomo gioioso. La sua semplicità, la sua umiltà, la sua fede, il suo amore per Cristo, la sua bontà verso ogni uomo e ogni donna l’hanno reso lieto in ogni situazione. Infatti, tra la santità e la gioia sussiste un intimo e indissolubile rapporto. Uno scrittore francese ha detto che al mondo vi è una sola tristezza: quella di non essere santi, cioè di non essere vicini a Dio. Guardando alla testimonianza di san Francesco, comprendiamo che è questo il segreto della vera felicità: diventare santi, vicini a Dio!" (Udienza generale, 27 gennaio 2010) Music: To the Ends of the Earth by Fr Rob Galea - ℗ 2011 Robert Galea - used with permission. Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Pope Benedict XVI: "On the basis of these simple findings that result from the Gospel, we can advance a pair of reflections. The first is that Jesus welcomed into the group of his close friends a man who, according to the concepts in vogue in Israel at that time, was considered a public sinner. Matthew, in fact, not only handled money deemed impure because of its provenance from people foreign to the people of God, but he also collaborated with a foreign and odiously greedy authority, whose tributes moreover could be determined arbitrarily. For these reasons, the Gospels more than once speak jointly of "tax collectors and sinners" (Mt 9, 10; Lk 15, 1), of "tax collectors and prostitutes" (Mt 21, 31). Furthermore, they see tax collectors as an example of meanness (cf Mt 5, 46: they love only those who love them), and mention one of them, Zacchaeus, as "a leader of tax collectors and a rich man" (Lk 19, 2), while popular opinion associated them with "extortioners, the unjust, adulterers" (Lk 18, 11). Based on these references, a first fact catches the eye: Jesus does not exclude anyone from his friendship. Rather, precisely while he is at table in Matthew-Levi's house, in response to those who expressed scandal at the fact that he associated with such disreputable company, Jesus pronounced the important statement: "It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick; I did not come to call the righteous but sinners" (Mk 2, 17). The good news of the Gospel consists precisely in this: in the offering of God's grace to the sinner! Elsewhere, with the famous parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who went up to the Temple to pray, Jesus even indicates an anonymous tax collector as an valuable example of humble trust in divine mercy: while the Pharisee is boasting of his own moral perfection, the "tax collector... did not even dare to lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, "O God, have mercy on me a sinner!'" And Jesus comments: "I tell you: this man returned home justified, unlike the other man, because the one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk 18, 13-14). In the figure of Matthew, therefore, the Gospels propose to us a true and proper paradox: the one who is apparently farthest from holiness can even become a model of welcome of God's mercy and leave a glimpse of its wonderful effects in their own existence." (General Audience, 30 August 2006) Music: To the Ends of the Earth by Fr Rob Galea - ℗ 2011 Robert Galea - used with permission. Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Pope Benedict XVI: "When Dominic died in 1221 in Bologna, the city that declared him its Patron, his work had already had great success. With the support of the Holy See, the Order of Preachers had spread to many countries in Europe for the benefit of the entire Church. Dominic was canonized in 1234 and it is he himself who, with his holiness, indicates to us two indispensable means for making apostolic action incisive. First of all, Marian devotion, which he cultivated with tenderness and left as a precious legacy to his spiritual children, who in the history of the Church have had the great merit of spreading the prayer of the Holy Rosary, so dear to the Christian people and so rich in Gospel values, a true school of faith and piety. In the second place, Dominic, who took care of several women's convents in France and in Rome, believed through and through in the value of intercessory prayer for the success of apostolic work. Only in Heaven will we understand how much the prayers of cloistered religious efficaciously accompanies apostolic action! To each of them I direct my grateful and affectionate thoughts. Dear brothers and sisters, may the life of Dominic de Guzmán spur us all to be fervent in prayer, courageous in living the faith and deeply in love with Jesus Christ. Through his intercession, let us ask God to enrich the Church always with authentic preachers of the Gospel." (General Audience, 3 February 2010) Music: To the Ends of the Earth by Fr Rob Galea - ℗ 2011 Robert Galea - used with permission. Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Pope Benedict XVI: ".. Dear friends, we too, with St Therese of the Child Jesus, must be able to repeat to the Lord every day that we want to live of love for him and for others, to learn at the school of the saints to love in an authentic and total way. Therese is one of the Gospel's “little ones" who let themselves be led by God into the depths of his Mystery. A guide for everyone, above all for those who, in the People of God, carry out the ministry of theologians. With humility and charity, faith and hope, Therese entered continually into the heart of Sacred Scripture which contains the Mystery of Christ. And this reading of the Bible, nourished by the science of love, is not opposed to academic science. The science of the saints, in fact, of which she herself speaks in the last page of The Story of a Soul, is the highest science. “All the saints have understood and in a more particular way perhaps those who fill the universe with the radiance of evangelical doctrine. Was it not from prayer that the saints Paul, Augustine, John of the Cross, Thomas Aquinas, Francis, Dominic and so many other illustrious Friends of God have drawn this divine science that fascinates the greatest geniuses?” Inseparable from the Gospel, the Eucharist is for Therese the Sacrament of Divine Love that stoops to extremes so as to raise us to Him. In her last Letter, on a picture that showed the Child Jesus in the consecrated Host, the Saint wrote these simple words: “I cannot fear a God who, for me, made himself so little! […] I love Him! In fact, He is nothing but Love and Mercy!” In the Gospel, Therese discovered above all the Mercy of Jesus, to the point of affirming: “To me He has given his infinite Mercy, through it I contemplate and adore his other divine perfections! (..) Thus all appear to me radiant with Love, Justice itself (even more perhaps than the rest) seems to me clothed with Love”. She also expresses herself thus in the last lines of The Story of a Soul: “As soon as I look at the Holy Gospel, at once I breathe the fragrances of the life of Jesus and I know which way to run .. It is not to the first place that I rush, but to the last …. Yes I feel, even if I had on my conscience all the sins that can be committed, I would go, with my heart broken with repentance, to throw myself into the arms of Jesus, because I know how much he loves the prodigal son who returns to Him" “Trust and Love” are thus the final point of the tale of her life, two words that like beacons illuminated her whole pathway of holiness, so as to be able to guide others on the same “little way of trust and love”, of spiritual childhood. Trust like that of a child who abandons himself into the hands of God, inseparable from the strong, radical commitment of true love, which is the total gift of oneself/self, for ever, as the Saint said contemplating Mary: “To love is to give all, and to give oneself” (Because I love you, O Mary, P 54/22). Thus Therese indicates to us all that Christian life consists in fully living the grace of Baptism in the total gift of oneself to the Love of the Father, so as to live like Christ, in the fire of the Holy Spirit, His same love for everyone else. Thank you." (General Audience, 6 April 2011) Music: To the Ends of the Earth by Fr Rob Galea - ℗ 2011 Robert Galea - used with permission. Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Papa Benedetto XVI: ".. Cari amici, anche noi con santa Teresa di Gesù Bambino dovremmo poter ripetere ogni giorno al Signore che vogliamo vivere di amore a Lui e agli altri, imparare alla scuola dei santi ad amare in modo autentico e totale. Teresa è uno dei “piccoli” del Vangelo che si lasciano condurre da Dio nelle profondità del suo Mistero. Una guida per tutti, soprattutto per coloro che, nel Popolo di Dio, svolgono il ministero di teologi. Con l'umiltà e la carità, la fede e la speranza, Teresa entra continuamente nel cuore della Sacra Scrittura che racchiude il Mistero di Cristo. E tale lettura della Bibbia, nutrita dalla scienza dell’amore, non si oppone alla scienza accademica. La scienza dei santi, infatti, di cui lei stessa parla nell'ultima pagina della Storia di un'anima, è la scienza più alta. "Tutti i santi l'hanno capito e in modo più particolare forse quelli che riempirono l'universo con l'irradiazione della dottrina evangelica. Non è forse dall'orazione che i Santi Paolo, Agostino, Giovanni della Croce, Tommaso d'Aquino, Francesco, Domenico e tanti altri illustri Amici di Dio hanno attinto questa scienza divina che affascina i geni più grandi?" Inseparabile dal Vangelo, l'Eucaristia è per Teresa il Sacramento dell'Amore Divino che si abbassa all'estremo per innalzarci fino a Lui. Nella sua ultima Lettera, su un'immagine che rappresenta Gesù Bambino nell'Ostia consacrata, la Santa scrive queste semplici parole: "Non posso temere un Dio che per me si è fatto così piccolo! (...) Io Lo amo! Infatti, Egli non è che Amore e Misericordia!" Nel Vangelo, Teresa scopre soprattutto la Misericordia di Gesù, al punto da affermare: "A me Egli ha dato la sua Misericordia infinita, attraverso essa contemplo e adoro le altre perfezioni divine! (...) Allora tutte mi paiono raggianti d'amore, la Giustizia stessa (e forse ancor più di qualsiasi altra) mi sembra rivestita d'amore". Così si esprime anche nelle ultime righe della Storia di un'anima: "Appena do un'occhiata al Santo Vangelo, subito respiro i profumi della vita di Gesù e so da che parte correre... Non è al primo posto, ma all'ultimo che mi slancio… Sì lo sento, anche se avessi sulla coscienza tutti i peccati che si possono commettere, andrei, con il cuore spezzato dal pentimento, a gettarmi tra le braccia di Gesù, perché so quanto ami il figlio prodigo che ritorna a Lui". "Fiducia e Amore" sono dunque il punto finale del racconto della sua vita, due parole che come fari hanno illuminato tutto il suo cammino di santità, per poter guidare gli altri sulla stessa sua "piccola via di fiducia e di amore", dell’infanzia spirituale. Fiducia come quella del bambino che si abbandona nelle mani di Dio, inseparabile dall'impegno forte, radicale del vero amore, che è dono totale di sé, per sempre, come dice la Santa contemplando Maria: "Amare è dare tutto, e dare se stesso". Così Teresa indica a tutti noi che la vita cristiana consiste nel vivere pienamente la grazia del Battesimo nel dono totale di sé all'Amore del Padre, per vivere come Cristo, nel fuoco dello Spirito Santo, il Suo stesso amore per tutti gli altri. Grazie." (Udienza generale, 6 aprile 2011) Music: To the Ends of the Earth by Fr Rob Galea - ℗ 2011 Robert Galea - used with permission. Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.

Pope Benedict XVI: ".. Returning to the scene of the vocation, the Evangelist tells us that, when Jesus sees Nathanael approaching him, he exclaims: "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile!" (Jn 1, 47). This is a eulogy that recalls the text of a Psalm: "Blessed is the man... in whose spirit there is no deceit" (Ps 32, 2), but provokes the curiosity of Nathanael who replies in amazement: "How do you know me?" (Jn 1, 48). Jesus' response is not immediately comprehensible. He says: "Before Philip called you, I saw you when you were under the fig tree" (Jn 1, 48). We do not know what had happened under this fig tree. It is evident that this was a decisive moment in Nathanael's life. He feels touched in his heart by Jesus' words, he feels understood and he understands: this man knows everything about me, He knows and understands the road of life, this man I can really trust. And so he answers with a clear and beautiful confession of faith, saying: "Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel" (Jn 1, 49). In this is delivered a first, important step on the journey of attachment to Jesus. Nathanael's words shed light on a twofold, complementary aspect of Jesus' identity: He is recognized both in his special relationship with God the Father, of whom he is the Only-begotten Son, and in his relationship with the people of Israel, of whom he is the declared King, precisely the description of the awaited Messiah. We must never lose sight of either one or other of these two components, because if we only proclaim Jesus' heavenly dimension we risk making him an ethereal and evanescent being, and if, on the contrary, we recognize only his concrete location in history, we end up by neglecting the divine dimension that properly qualifies him." (General Audience, 4 October 2006) Music: To the Ends of the Earth by Fr Rob Galea - ℗ 2011 Robert Galea - used with permission. Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.