"What Jesus teaches us first of all is to meet each other, and in meeting to offer each other help. We must know how to meet each other. We must build, create, and construct a culture of encounter". These are the words pronounced by Pope Francis in the video message for the feast of San Gaetano, in Argentina, released on 7 August 2013.

"It is what Jesus teaches us: to meet the needs of the most underprivileged. Just as Jesus did, always meeting people’s needs; he went to meet them. When you encounter someone who is needier, your heart begins to grow, to grow larger and larger! Because the encounter expands its capacity for loving. The encounter with the other expands the heart”.

“Jesus does not want to act alone, he came to bring the love of God into the world and he wants to spread it in the style of communion, in the style of brotherhood. That is why he immediately forms a community of disciples, which is a missionary community. He trains them straight away for the mission, to go forth”. Pope Francis stated this during the Angelus on 7 July 2013.

“Do not be afraid of being joyful! Don't be afraid of joy! That joy which the Lord gives us when we allow him to enter our life. Let us allow him to enter our lives and invite us to go out to the margins of life and proclaim the Gospel”.

“Following Jesus means sharing his merciful love, entering his great work of mercy for each man and for all men. The work of Jesus is, precisely, a work of mercy, a work of forgiveness and of love! Jesus is so full of mercy! And this universal pardon, this mercy, passes through the Cross. Jesus, however, does not want to do this work alone: he wants to involve us too in the mission that the Father entrusted to him” Pope Francis said it during the Angelus on September 8th 2013.

“Jesus’ disciple renounces all his possessions because in Jesus he has found the greatest Good in which every other good receives its full value and meaning: family ties, other relationships, work, cultural and economic goods and so forth.... The Christian detaches him or herself from all things and rediscovers all things in the logic of the Gospel, the logic of love and of service”, he concluded.

“Each new day in the life of our families, and each new generation, brings the promise of a new Pentecost, a domestic Pentecost, a fresh outpouring of the Spirit, the Paraclete, whom Jesus sends as our Advocate, our Consoler and indeed our Encourager". This is what Pope Francis said on August 26, 2018, celebrating Mass at the conclusion of the IX World Meeting of Families at Dublin.

“How much our world needs this encouragement that is God’s gift and promise! As one of the fruits of this celebration of family life, may you go back to your homes and become a source of encouragement to others, to share with them Jesus’”.

During his reflection, the Holy Father stressed how, “living in love, even as Christ loved us (cfr. Eph 5:2), entails imitating his own self-sacrifice, dying to ourselves in order to be reborn to a greater and more enduring love. The love that alone can save our world from its bondage to sin, selfishness, greed and indifference to the needs of the less fortunate”.

“That is the love that we have come to know in Christ Jesus. It became incarnate in our world through a family, and through the witness of Christian families in every age it has the power to break down every barrier in order to reconcile the world to God and to make us what we were always meant to be: a single human family dwelling together in justice, holiness and peace”.

“The opening of the heavens indicate that God granted his grace in order that the land bear its fruit. This is how the earth became the dwelling place of God among men, and it is possible for each one of us to meet the Son of God, experiencing all of his love and infinite mercy. We are able to encounter Him truly present in the Sacraments, especially in the Eucharist”. Pope Francis affirmed during the Angelus of 11 January 2015.

“We are able to recognize Him in the faces of our brothers and sisters, especially in the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, and the displaced: they are the living flesh of the suffering Christ and the visible image of the invisible God” said again the Bishop of Rome.

“To subject our Christian life and mission, which we have all received in Baptism, to the action of the Holy Spirit means finding the apostolic courage necessary to overcome easy worldly accommodations” he concluded.

"The bread of life, the sacrament of the Body and of the Blood of Christ, is freely given to us in the table of the Eucharist. Around the altar, we find what nourishes us and quenches us spiritually today and for eternity. Every time we participate in the Holy Mass, in a certain sense, we anticipate heaven on earth, because from the Eucharistic food, the Body and the Blood of Jesus, we learn what eternal life is. It is living for the Lord. The Eucharist molds us because we do not live only for ourselves, but for the Lord and for our brothers". These are the words of Pope Francis at the Angelus on August 19, 2018.

"Jesus, as at that time, also today repeats to each of us: 'If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you' (v. 53). Brothers and sisters, it does not deal with material food, but a living and vivifying bread that communicates the very life of God".

"When we participate at communion we receive the very life of God. To have this life we need to nourish ourselves with the Gospel and the love of our brothers".