Quote

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

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Pope Benedict XVI
Age: 97
Born: 1927
Born: April 16
Philosopher
Pianist
Religious Writer
Roman Catholic Priest
Theologian
Transitional Deacon
University Teacher
Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger
Pope Benedict XVI
Josef Ratzinger
Benedetto XVI
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
Joseph Alois Ratzinger
Failing
Devout
Desire
Completely
Heed
Others
Duty
Solely
Also
Grow
Duties
Life
Relationship
Perform
Proper
Becomes
Fail
Arid
Grows
Merely
Loveless
Religious

More quotes by Pope Benedict XVI

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That the entire People of God, to whom Christ entrusted the mandate to go and preach the Gospel to every creature, may eagerly assume their own missionary responsibility and consider it the highest service they can offer humanity.
Pope Benedict XVI
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Nourishment is a factor which touches on the fundamental right to life.
Pope Benedict XVI
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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
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The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right – it is the very opposite. It is “a deep wound in society”.
Pope Benedict XVI
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A spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair.
Pope Benedict XVI
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While conscious of the challenges you face, I encourage you to follow faithfully in the footsteps of your founders, and to stir into flame the charisms and apostolic zeal which you have inherited from them, confident that Christ will continue to work with you and to confirm your preaching with signs of his presence and power.
Pope Benedict XVI
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Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd! Do not allow your net to be torn, help us to be servants of unity!
Pope Benedict XVI
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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.
Pope Benedict XVI
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This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.
Pope Benedict XVI
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Many people perceive Christianity as something institutional - rather than as an encounter with Christ - which explains why they don't see it as a source of joy.
Pope Benedict XVI
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The Faith does not mean an alienation from any culture for any people because all cultures await Christ and are not destroyed by the Lord. In fact, they reach their maturity.
Pope Benedict XVI
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...The baptized in their sense of mission, through prayer, the witness of life and Christian commitment in all its forms, so that all the faithful may become missionaries in the places where they live and that vocations will come forth to proclaim the Gospel to men who do not yet know it.
Pope Benedict XVI
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Our faith is well founded but it is necessary that this faith become part of our lives. A great effort must therefore be made in order for all Christians to transform themselves into 'witnesses,' ready and able to shoulder the commitment of testifying - always and to everyone - to the hope that animates them.
Pope Benedict XVI
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A theologian who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental they necessarily are reflected in his theology.
Pope Benedict XVI
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That the different Christian confessions, aware of the need for a new evangelisation in this period of profound transformations, may be committed to announcing the Good News and moving towards the full unity of all Christians in order to offer a more credible testimony of the Gospel.
Pope Benedict XVI
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The fundamental task of the evangelization of culture is the challenge to make God visible in the human face of Jesus.
Pope Benedict XVI
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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.
Pope Benedict XVI
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The essence of Christianity...is an ever-new encounter with... the God who speaks to us, who approaches us and who befriends us!
Pope Benedict XVI
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How much we need, in the church and in society, witnesses of the beauty of holiness, witnesses of the splendour of truth, witnesses of the joy and freedom born of a living relationship with Christ!
Pope Benedict XVI
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Men and women were created for something great, for infinity. Nothing else will ever be enough.
Pope Benedict XVI