This new regular feature will comprise, from various sources, extracts of homilies, talks and observations by the Holy Father. Thousands of the faithful are flocking to his weekly general audiences. They come, not just to be able to say: “I have seen the Pope”, but to listen to his words of inspiration & instruction, from the heart of a man at one with and “in love with Christ”.

The Holy Father made these observations on Feb. 17 during an audience with the staff of the review “La Civilta Cattolica”

“The Lord Jesus calls his Church to announce with a new impulse the Gospel of salvation…to (present) in efficient ways the announcement of the Good News in accord with the historical situation in which men and women live today.”

Modern culture, he said in his address, is becoming more “a culture characterized by individualistic relativism and positivist scientism” a culture that tends to be “closed to God and his moral law, if not always hostile to Christianity.” For this reason the Pontiff said, Catholics are called to put forth a great effort “in order to develop a dialogue with the current culture and open it to the perennial values of transcendence”.

Benedict XVI added that the current panorama also presents “many signs of hope, fruit of the action of the Holy Spirit” These promising signs, he said, include “the new sensitivity for religious values”, “the renewed attention to the sacred Scripture”, an increased respect for human rights, and “the will to dialogue with other religions,” “In particular” he said, “faith in Jesus can help many to accept the meaning of life and the human adventure, offering them those reference points that they often lack in a frenetic and disoriented world”

In October last year Pope Benedict met in the Vatican with children who had recently received their First Holy Communion or were preparing to do so. Some asked him questions:

“As for the question, of course I remember my First Communion day very well. It was a lovely Sunday in March, 1936, 69 years ago. It was a sunny day, the church looked beautiful, there was music. There were about 30 of us, boys and girls from my little village of no more than 500 inhabitants.

But at the heart of my joyful & beautiful memories is this one – & your spokesperson said the same thing: I understood Jesus had entered my heart. He had actually visited me. And with Jesus, God Himself was with me. And I realised that this is a gift of love and it is truly worth all the other things that life can give.

So on that day I was really filled with joy because Jesus came to me and I realised that a new stage in my life was beginning, I was 9 years old, and it was henceforth important to stay faithful to that encounter, to that communion. I promised the Lord the best I could: ‘I always want to stay with You’, and I prayed to Him ‘but above all stay with me’. So I went on living my life like that; thanks be to God, the Lord has always taken me by the hand and guided me, even in difficult situations.

Thus, that day of my First Communion was the beginning of a journey made together. I hope that for all of you, too, the First Communion you have received in the Year of the Eucharist will be the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Jesus, the beginning of a journey together, because in walking with Jesus we do well and life becomes good”.

On March 2 Benedict XVI addressed members of the clergy of Rome during which he responded to questions and statements by a number of priests Here are his introductory words and his answer to one of the questions. We plan to publish further answers in subsequent issues of “Lepanto”.

“I would like to express my joy at being here with you, dear priests of Rome. It is a true joy to see so many good pastors in the service of the “Good Shepherd” here in the first See of Christianity, in the Church which ‘presides in charity’ & must be a model for other local Churches. Thank you for your service!

We have the shining example of Father Andrea (the priest from the Diocese of Rome serving in Turkey who was murdered this February, shot in the back as he prayed in his little church before Mass - Ed.) who shows what it means to ‘be’ a priest to the very end: dying for Christ in a moment of prayer, thereby witnessing on the one hand to the interiority of his own life with Christ, and on the other, to his own witness to people at a truly ‘panpherical’ point of the world, surrounded by hatred and the fanaticism of others and thus to find Life”.

This is the statement (intervention) made by the pastor of St. Anastasia Parish in Rome: The Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration 24 hours a day. The faithful take turns in making perpetual adoration. My suggestion is that there should be perpetual adoration of the Eucharist in each of the five sectors of the Diocese of Rome.(Zenit)

Benedict XVI: Here, perhaps I can say in parentheses that the Church of St Anastasia was already dear to me even before I say it because it was the titular church of our Cardinal de Faulhaber. He always let us know he had a church in Rome, St Anastasia.

Historians say that it was at St Anastasia’s that the Pope had to visit the Byzantine governor and it was there that he had his seat. The church also reminds us of the saint, hence the “Anastasis”. At Christmas we also think of the Resurrection.

I did not know and I am glad to be told about it, that the church is now a place of “perpetual adoration”; thus it is a focal point in Rome for the life of faith. I confidently place in the hands of the cardinal vicar this proposal to create five places of perpetual adoration in the five sectors of the Diocese of Rome.

I only want to say: Thanks be to God that after the Council, after a period in which the sense of Eucharistic Adoration was somewhat lacking, the joy of this adoration was reborn everywhere in the Church, as we saw and heard in the Synod on the Eucharist. Of course, the conciliar constitution on the liturgy enabled us to discover the full riches of the Eucharist in which the Lord’s testament is accomplished: He gives Himself to us and we respond by giving ourselves to Him.

We have now discovered, however, that without adoration as an act consequent to Communion received, this centre which the Lord gave to us, that is, the possibility of celebrating His sacrifice and thus of entering into a sacramental, almost corporeal, communion with Him, loses its depth as well as its human richness.

Adoration means entering the depths of our hearts in communion with the Lord, who makes himself bodily present in the Eucharist. In the monstrance, he always entrusts himself to us and asks us to be united with his Presence, with the Risen Body.