“Being humble, in fact, doesn’t mean being unhappy with oneself or recognizing one’s wretchedness, or, to some extent, one’s own smallness. It’s looking at God first before oneself and measuring the abyss that separates the finite from the infinite. The more people see this, the more they become humble.”
— Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher of the papal household, giving the second of his 2013 Advent reflections to the pope and his closest aides Dec. 13
“Let real guarantees of religious liberty be given to all, together with the rights of Christians to live peacefully in the places where they were born, in the native country they love as citizens of more than 2,000 years, in order that they might contribute as always to the good of all.”
— Pope Francis, praying for the safety and religious liberty of Christians in the Middle East Dec. 9 while concelebrating Mass with the leader of Egypt’s Coptic Catholics, Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak
