Pope Benedict XVI Inspiration Quotations

God came into the world to reawaken the thirst for great things in us.

I encourage all of you to discover ever more fully in the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ's sacrificial love, the inspiration and strength needed to work ever more generously for the spread of God's Kingdom and the growth of the civilization of love

The more administrative machinery we construct, be it the most modern, the less place there is for the Spirit, the less place there is for the Lord, and the less freedom there is. It is my opinion that we ought to begin an unsparing examination of conscience on this point at all levels in the Church.

Our first experience of God is so important, we either experience Him as the police guard that wants to punish or as Creative Love that awaits.

Can man, the finite and sinful one, cooperate with God, the Infinite and Holy One? Yes, he can, precisely because God Himself has become man, become body, and here (in the liturgy), again and again, he comes through his body to us who live in the body.

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...

Eternity is not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality.

Violence against even one human being is violence against all.

A thirst for the infinite is indelibly present in human beings. Man was created to have a relationship with God; we need him.

What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation - if not beauty?

Love is the very process of passing over, of transformation, of stepping outside the limitations of fallen humanity - in which we are all separated from one another and ultimately impenetrable to one another - into an infinite otherness.

Let us allow ourselves to be 'infected' by St. Joseph's silence! We need it greatly, in a world that is often too noisy, that does not favor meditation or listening to the voice of God.

The "name" of the Most Holy Trinity is in a certain way impressed upon everything that exists, because everything that exists, down to the least particle, is a being in relation, and thus God-relation shines forth, ultimately creative Love shines forth. All comes from love, tends toward love, and is moved by love, naturally, according to different grades of consciousness and freedom... The strongest proof that we are made in the image of the Trinity is this: only love makes us happy, because we live in relation, and we live to love and be loved.

How can it be that the most wonderous and sacred human space - the womb - has become a place of unutterable violence?

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.

Love alone makes us happy, because we live in relation, and we live to love and to be loved.

Grace, lavished upon us by God and communicated through the Mystery of the Incarnate Word, is an absolutely free gift with which nature is healed, strengthened and assisted in pursuing the innate desire for happiness in the heart of every man and of every woman.

In the pierced heart of the Crucified, God's own heart is opened up - here we see who God is and what he is like. Heaven is no longer locked up. God has stepped out of his hiddenness

In the world in which we live, it is almost a necessity to be able to regain one's strength of body and spirit, especially for those who live in the city, where the conditions of life, often feverish, leave little room for silence, reflection and relaxed contact with nature.

The world needs more than just itself. Amid the dreariness, people do not need a distraction that will in the end become dreary itself; they are asking for mystery, even if they do not realize this themselves. They need the sign of the wholly Other, the living Word of God, entering into this our age in unadulterated trustworthiness and dynamism.

Which direction do we take? The one prompted by the passions or the one indicated by the star which shines in your conscience? The Magi heard the answer: "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet"... enlightened by these words, they chose to press forward to the very end.

Love looks to the eternal. Love is indeed "ecstasy," not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an on-going exodus out of the closed inward-looking self toward its liberation through self-giving... toward authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God...

At the judgment, in response to our questions, the Lord will show us his wounds, and we will understand. In the meantime, however, he simply expects us to stand by him and to believe what these wounds tell us, even though we cannot work right through the logic of this world.

The world needs transparent lives, clear souls, pure minds that refuse to be perceived as mere objects of pleasure.

The highest things, the things that really matter, we cannot achieve on our own; we have to accept them as gifts and enter in to the dynamic of the gift, so to speak.

For in this world, marked by sin, the gravitational pull of our lives is weighted by the chains of the "I" and the "self." These chains must be broken to free us for a new love that places us in another gravitational field where we can enter new life.

It is important always to know that the first word, the true initiative, the true activity comes from God and only by inserting ourselves into the divine initiative, only begging for this divine initiative, shall we too be able to become - with him and in him - evangelizers.

I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools.

The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.

God seeks us where we are, not so that we stay there, but so that we may come to be where He is, so that we may get beyond ourselves.

We live in a society in which it seems that every space, every moment must be 'filled' with initiatives, activity, sound; often there is not even time to listen and dialogue... Let us not be afraid to be silent outside and inside ourselves, so that we are able not only to perceive God's voice, but also the voice of the person next to us, the voices of others.

Believing is nothing other than, in the darkness of the world, touching the hand of God, and in this way, in silence, hearing the Word, seeing love.

Everything is a gift from God: it is only by recognizing this crucial dependence on the Creator that we will find freedom and peace.

A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak. He knows that God is love and that God's presence is felt at the very time when the only thing we do is to love.

From the point of view of the Christian faith, man comes in the profoundest sense to himself not through what he does but through what he accepts. He must wait for the gift of love, and love can only be received as a gift... One must wait for it, let it be given to one. And one cannot become wholly man in any other way than by being loved, by letting oneself be loved... If he declines to let himself be presented with the gift, then he destroys himself.

In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth... Deeper reflection helps us to discover the links between events that at first sight seem unconnected... For this to happen, it is necessary to develop an appropriate environment, a kind of 'eco-system' that maintains a just equilibrium between silence, words, images and sounds.

The happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist.

With the Eucharist, therefore, heaven comes down to earth, the tomorrow of God descends into the present and it is as if time remains embraced by divine eternity.

God no longer simply stands before us as the One who is totally Other. He is within us, and we are in him. His dynamic enters into us and then seeks to spread outward to others until it fills the world, so that his love can truly become the dominant measure of the world.

Only from God does true revolution come... the definitive way to change the world.

God loves us; we need only to summon up the humility to allow ourselves to be loved.

Only if there is love, if hearts are opened, can one person truly know the other.

To make the sign of the cross is to pronounce a visible and public yes to him who died for us and who is risen, to the God who in the humility and weakness of his love is omnipotent, stronger than all the power and intelligence of the world.

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.

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.

The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows by "attraction": just as Christ "draws all to himself" by the power of his love, culminating in the sacrifice of the Cross, so the Church fulfills her mission...

Ultimately, in the battle against lies and violence, truth and love have no other weapon than the witness of suffering.

Lent stimulates us to let the Word of God penetrate our life and in this way to know the fundamental truth: who we are, where we come from, where we must go, what path we must take in life...

If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful, and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed.