Selected quotes of Pope Benedict XVI offered daily for prayer and reflection….

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Feast, Easter
 


Christ is risen! The liturgy devotes to this immense mystery not only a day - it would be too little for such joy-, but at least 50 days, that is, the entire Easter Season, which ends with Pentecost. Easter Sunday, moreover, is an absolutely special day which extends for the whole of this week until next Sunday and forms the Octave of Easter.

 
Regina Caeli
Castel Gandolfo
9 April 2007

 
 
 
Feast, Easter
 


Mary Magdalene stood weeping by the empty tomb with the sole desire to know where they had taken her Lord. She encounters him and only recognizes him when he calls her by name (cf. Jn 20: 11-18). If we seek the Lord with a simple and sincere mind, we too will find him; indeed, he himself will come to meet us; he will make us recognize him, he will call us by name, that is, he will admit us to the intimacy of his love.

 
General Audience
St Peter's Square
11 April 2007

 
 
 
Feast, Easter
 


Easter brings the newness of a profound and total passage from a life subjected to the slavery of sin to a life of freedom, enlivened by love, a force that pulls down every barrier and builds a new harmony in one’s own heart and in the relationship with others and with things.

 
General Audience
St. Peter's Square
27 April 2011

 
 
 
Feast, Easter
 


Let us allow the paschal "alleluia" to be deeply impressed within us, so that it is not only a word in certain external circumstances but is expressed in our own lives, the lives of people who invite everyone to praise the Lord and do so with their behaviour as "risen" ones.

 
Castel Gandolfo
Easter Monday
24 March 2008

 
 
 
Feast, Easter
 


The visit of the Risen One is not limited to the space of the Upper Room but goes beyond it, to the point that all can receive the gift of peace and life with the "creative Breath".
In fact, Jesus said twice to his disciples, ""Peace be with you". And he added, "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you". Having said this he breathed on them, saying "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained". This is the mission of the Church, eternally assisted by the Paraclete: to bear the Good News, the joyful reality of God's merciful love, in order, as St John says, "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name" .

 
Regina Caeli
Castel Gandolfo
Divine Mercy Sunday
11 April 2010

 
 
 
Feast, Easter
 


The cross speaks to us of the supreme love of God, and invites, today, to renew our faith in the power of that love, and to believe that in every situation of our lives, our history and our world, that God is able to vanquish death, sin and evil, and to give us new, risen life.

 
Conclusion
Way of the Cross
Coliseum in Rome
Good Friday, 2011

 
 
 
Feast, Easter
 


Witnessing every day to the joy of the Risen Lord means always living in “a paschal mode” and causing to ring out the Good News that Christ is neither an idea nor a memory of the past, but a Person who lives with us, for us, and in us; and with him, for him, and in him, we can make all things new (cf. Rev 21:5).

 
General Audience
St. Peter's Square
27 April 2011

 
 
 
Feast, Easter
 


Christ is truly risen! We cannot keep for ourselves the life and joy that he has given us in his Passover, but rather we must give it to all who approach us. It is our duty and our mission: to kindle in the heart of our neighbor hope where there is despair, joy where there is sorrow, life where there is death.

 
General Audience
St. Peter's Square
27 April 2011

 

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