‘WHERE GOD IS, THERE IS A FUTURE’

I know that many of you followed the news of our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI’s recent trip to his homeland of Germany with great interest. So did I.

I was inspired and challenged by his message — which was not only intended for the people of Germany, but for all of us.

The theme our Holy Father gave to his visit was: “Where God is, there is a future.”
In his addresses and homilies, he repeated that the real problem in our world today is secularization — the many pressures to drive God out of our society and out of our lives.
The Pope said we need to know God in order to know who we are and the true meaning of our lives --- because the human person is made in the image of God. And he said that our society needs religion --- because only through God can we know what is good and true and just. Only through God can we know how to make good laws and to use our freedom to serve justice and peace.
“The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of people’s responsibility for their actions,” the Pope said.
Again and again in his talks in Germany, the Pope came back to the significance of our individual decisions and actions.
He said: “Are they really so small, our failings? Is not the world laid waste through the corruption of the great, but also of the small, who think only of their own advantage? … Could hunger and poverty so devastate parts of the world if love for God and godly love of neighbor — of his creatures, of men and women — were more alive in us?
“No, evil is no small matter. Were we truly to place God at the center of our lives, it could not be so powerful.”
The Holy Father urged us to a living faith in Jesus Christ and a new commitment to our mission as disciples.
“Where God is, there is a future. Indeed --- when we allow God’s love to pervade and to shape the whole of our ...