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 XviRead
How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of his Church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a "sign" that will touch their minds and their hearts! Today, as then, the Evangelist reminds us that the only "sign" is Jesus raised on the cross: Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign. Through him we can understand the truth about life and obtain salvation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection serve as the ultimate sign of divine mercy and truth.
Pope Benedict XVI reflects on the human quest for divine connection, indicating that many are searching for signs of God's presence and truth in their lives. He asserts that the definitive sign of God's love and mercy is found in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, whose death and resurrection provide a pathway to understanding life's truth and achieving salvation, highlighting the centrality of faith in Christ.
Themes
FaithJesusSalvationMercyTruth
In practice
Example use cases
A pastor could use this quote during a sermon to emphasize the importance of faith in Jesus.
More from Pope Benedict Xvi
All quotes βThe life of the community, both domestically and internationally, clearly demonstrates that respect for rights, and the guarantees that follow from them, are measures of the common good that serve to evaluate the relationship between justice and injustice, development and poverty, security and conflict.
Pope Benedict XviRead
If you follow the will of God, you know that in spite of all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge. You know that the foundation of the world is love, so that even when no human being can or will help you, you may go on, trusting in the One that loves you.
Pope Benedict XviRead
I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools.
Pope Benedict XviRead
Faith is above all a personal, intimate encounter with Jesus, and to experience [His] closeness, [His] friendship, [His] Love; only in this way does one learn to know [Him] ever more, and to love and follow [Him] ever more. May this happen to each one of us.
Pope Benedict XviRead
Do not be afraid of seeming different and being criticized for what might seem to be losing or out of fashion; your peers but adults too, especially those who seem more distant from the mindset and values of the Gospel, are crying out to see someone who dares to live according to the fullness of humanity revealed by Jesus Christ.
Pope Benedict XviRead
Similar quotes
No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger.
HeraclitusRead
What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up, And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets: May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.
Robert BrowningRead
Democracy is timelessly human, and timelessness always implies a certain amount of potential youthfulness.
Thomas MannRead
My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore except in my memory and my imagination.
Richard RussoRead
My autobiography is a digressive illustration and exemplification of what race has meant in the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
W. E. B. Du BoisRead
The Bourne Underneath the growing grass, Underneath the living flowers, Deeper than the sound of showers: There we shall not count the hours By the shadows as they pass. Youth and health will be but vain, Beauty reckoned of no worth: There a very little girth Can hold round what once the earth Seemed too narrow to contain.
Christina RossettiRead