It is not often Perhaps some of you have never When I invite you to become saints, I am asking you not Happiness is something we all want<\/u> but one of the great Not In your Catholic schools, there is always a bigger A good school provides a rounded education for the whole <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I couldn’t follow the Pope’s UK trip after very early Friday morning so I find myself reviewing the magnificent papal event. If you’ve not read Benedict’s UK addresses, I highly recommend that you do so. What follows are some of the stunning thoughts of the Holy Father from an education gathering at St Mary’s University … Continue reading I invite you to become saints, Pope Benedict said to UK students<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[32081],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"St](\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/St%20Mary%27s%20youth.jpg\")
\nthat a Pope, or indeed anyone else has the opportunity to speak to the students
\nof all the Catholic schools of England, Wales and Scotland at the same time.
\nAnd since I have the chance now, there is something I very much want to say to
\nyou. I hope that among those of you listening to me today there are some of the
\nfuture saints of the twenty-first century<\/i>. What God wants most of all for each
\none of you is that you should become holy. He loves you much more than you
\ncould ever begin to imagine, and he wants the very best for you. And by far the
\nbest thing for you is to grow in holiness.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n
\nthought about this before. Perhaps some of you think being a saint is not for
\nyou. Let me explain what I mean. When we are young, we can usually think of
\npeople that we look up to, people we admire, people we want to be like. It
\ncould be someone we meet in our daily lives that we hold in great esteem. Or it
\ncould be someone famous. We live in a celebrity culture, and young people are
\noften encouraged to model themselves on figures from the world of sport or
\nentertainment. My question for you is this<\/u>: what are the qualities you see in
\nothers that you would most like to have yourselves? What kind of person would
\nyou really like to be?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nto be content with second best<\/b><\/i><\/u>. I am asking you not to pursue one limited goal
\nand ignore all the others<\/b>. Having money makes it possible to be generous and to
\ndo good in the world, but on its own, it is not enough to make us happy. Being
\nhighly skilled in some activity or profession is good, but it will not satisfy
\nus unless we aim for something greater still. It might make us famous, but it
\nwill not make us happy.<\/span><\/p>\n
\ntragedies in this world is that so many people never find it, because they look
\nfor it in the wrong places. The key to it is very simple – true happiness is to
\nbe found in God. We need to have the courage to place our deepest hopes in God
\nalone, not in money, in a career, in worldly success, or in our relationships
\nwith others, but in God<\/b>. Only he can satisfy the deepest needs of our hearts.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nonly does God love us with a depth and an intensity<\/b> that we can scarcely begin
\nto comprehend, but he invites us to respond to that love<\/b>. You all know what it is like when you meet someone interesting and attractive,
\nand you want to be that person’s friend. You always hope they will find you
\ninteresting and attractive, and want to be your friend. God wants your
\nfriendship<\/u>. And once you enter into friendship with God, everything in your
\nlife begins to change. As you come to know him better, you find you want to
\nreflect something of his infinite goodness in your own life<\/i>. You are attracted
\nto the practice of virtue. You begin to see greed and selfishness and all the
\nother sins for what they really are, destructive and dangerous tendencies that
\ncause deep suffering and do great damage, and you want to avoid falling into
\nthat trap yourselves. You begin to feel compassion for people in difficulties
\nand you are eager to do something to help them. You want to come to the aid of
\nthe poor and the hungry, you want to comfort the sorrowful, you want to be kind
\nand generous. And once these things begin to matter to you, you are well on the
\nway to becoming saints.<\/span><\/p>\n
\npicture over and above the individual subjects you study, the different skills
\nyou learn<\/u>. All the work you do is placed in the context of growing in
\nfriendship with God, and all that flows from that friendship. So you learn not
\njust to be good students, but good citizens, good people<\/i>. … Always remember
\nthat every subject you study is part of a bigger picture. Never allow
\nyourselves to become narrow. The world needs good scientists, but a scientific
\noutlook becomes dangerously narrow if it ignores the religious or ethical
\ndimension of life, just as religion becomes narrow if it rejects the legitimate
\ncontribution of science to our understanding of the world. We need good
\nhistorians and philosophers and economists, but if the account they give of
\nhuman life within their particular field is too narrowly focused, they can lead
\nus seriously astray.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nperson. And a good Catholic school<\/u>, over and above this, should help all its
\nstudents to become saints<\/u>. I know that there are many non-Catholics studying in
\nthe Catholic schools in Great Britain, and I wish to include all of you in my
\nwords today. I pray that you too will feel encouraged to practise virtue and to
\ngrow in knowledge and friendship with God alongside your Catholic classmates.
\nYou are a reminder to them of the bigger picture that exists outside the
\nschool, and indeed, it is only right that respect and friendship for members of
\nother religious traditions should be among the virtues learned in a Catholic
\nschool<\/u>. I hope too that you will want to share with everyone you meet the
\nvalues and insights you have learned through the Christian education you have
\nreceived.