What does it mean to love totally? How can we learn to love truly? --Catholic Action asks Pope for advice

Pope Benedict XVI responded to a cross section of Italian Catholic Action, on Saturday, October 31. Reportedly, there were 50,000 children, 30,000 youth and 10,000 educators of Catholic Action, who were in Rome meeting under the theme: "There Is More. We Become Great Together." WOW!!!! The Pope really takes humanity seriously; he really understands me and my desires and my limitations. One of the Q&A that I liked is the following:

Your Holiness, our teachers in Catholic Action tell us that to grow up it is necessary to learn to love, but often we fail and we suffer in our relationships, in our friendships, in our first loves. But what does it mean to love totally? How can we learn to love truly?

Benedict XVI: A great question. It is very important, I would say fundamental, to learn to love, truly to love, to learn the art of real love! In adolescence we stop before the mirror and we notice that we are changing. But if you continue to look at yourself, you will never grow up! You grow up when you do no longer let the mirror be the only truth about you but when you let your friends tell you. You will grow up if you are able to make your life a gift to others, not to seek yourselves, but to give yourselves to others: this is the school of love. This love, however, must bring you into that "more" that today shout to everyone. "There is more!" As I have already said, I too, in my youth wanted something more than what the society and the mentality of the time presented to me. I wanted to breathe pure air, above all I desired a beautiful and good world, like our God, the Father of Jesus, wanted for everyone. And I understood more and more that the world becomes beautiful and good if one knows this will of God and if the world corresponds to this will of God, which is the true light, beauty, love that gives the world meaning.

It is quite true: You cannot and must not adapt yourselves to a love reduced to a commodity to be consumed without respect for oneself or for others, incapable of chastity and purity. This is not freedom. Much of the "love" that is proposed by the media, on the internet, is not love but egoism, closure, it gives you the illusion of a moment, but it does not make you happy, it does not make you grow up, it binds you like a chain that suffocates more beautiful thoughts and sentiments, the true desires of the heart, that irrepressible power that is love and that has its maximum expression in Jesus and strength and fire in the Holy Spirit, who enflames your lives, your thoughts, your affections. Of course it demands sacrifice to live love in the true way -- without renunciation one does not find this road -- but I am certain that you are not afraid of the toil of a challenging and authentic love. It is the only kind that, in the final analysis, gives true joy! There is a test that tells you whether your love is growing in a healthy way: If you do not exclude others from your life, above all your friends who are suffering and alone, people in difficulty, and if you open your heart to the great friend Jesus.

Catholic Action also teaches you the roads to take to learn authentic love: participation in the life of the Church, of your Christian community, loving your friends in the Children's Catholic Action group, in Catholic Action, availability to those of your age at school, in the parish or in other environments, the company of the Mother of Jesus, Mary, who knows how to guide your heart and lead you along the way of good. Moreover, in Catholic Action, you have many examples of genuine, beautiful, true love: Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, Blessed Alberto Marvelli; love that also leads to the sacrifice of one's life, like with Blessed Pierina Morosini and Blessed Antonia Mesina.

Young people of Catholic Action, aspire to big goals, because God gives you the strength. "More" is being young people and children who decide to love like Jesus does, to be the protagonists of our own lives, protagonists in the Church, witnesses of the faith to those who are your age. "More" is the