“The desert is the place where our freedom can mature in a personal decision not to fall back into slavery."

"Listen to this," the pope told the children: "God loves us and is always waiting for us."

Those living in Gaza continue to deal with violence with no protection or ability to provide for themselves. 

The “attachment to small things” assumes a totalizing effect whereby it “takes away freedom.”

“I ask you to intensify your prayer to prepare us to live this event of grace well and to experience the power of God’s hope."

“We need this in the Church, where, instead of splitting into groups based on our own ideas, we are called to put God back at the center,” said Pope Francis.

"Before the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, before the birth of Jesus, one needs a religious attitude of wonder."

Silence and sobriety -- from words, from using things, from media and from social media" -- are not just sacrifices offered to God, he said, but "essential elements of Christian life," said Pope Francis.

"The servants' vigilance is not one of fear, but of longing, of waiting to go forth to meet their Lord who is coming," the pope's text said.

"You are called to a great task: to protect, through words and images, the dignity of people," said Pope Francis.

“These martyrs bore witness to Christ to the end. May their example strengthen so many Christians who in our time are discriminated against for their faith."

Joy “is not a product of our human efforts, plans, or skills, but of the energy born of an encounter with Christ. Christian joy comes from God himself, from our knowledge of his love for us.”

“There’s no method to learn to make peace. There’s a gesture: You make peace with an outstretched hand," said Pope Francis.

“Holiness is a gift of God, which we’ve received at baptism. And if we let it grow, it can completely change our lives,” Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis calls for a day of fasting, penance, and prayer for peace in the Holy Land.

“in an age that urges us to focus on ourselves and our own interests, Thérèse shows us the beauty of making our lives a gift."

The apostolic exhortation, titled Laudate Deum (“Praise God”), is meant to address what Francis in the document calls the “global social issue” of climate change.

Pope Francis prayed that "the synod be a 'kairos' (moment) of fraternity, a place where the Holy Spirit will purify the church from gossip, ideologies and polarization.

Pope Francis tells the crowd that God is always seeking us and loving us.

"The relic we bless is simply a road sign, a finger that points us to the necessity, the urgency, the requirement to follow the Gospel in a radical way."

In his Angelus, the pope said forgiving is “not a good deed that we can choose to do or not do” but “a fundamental condition for those who are Christians.”

Pope Francis on Wednesday presented the life of Blessed José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros as an example of the Gospel in action.

Pope Francis on Wednesday encouraged people to look for the quiet goodness in the world.

The pope noted that in the eyes of the world it might appear “absurd” to begin confronting societal problems by prayers on one’s knees of “adoration and reparation,” but that it is always effective.

Despite the incredible devastation and widespread fears that another anti-Christian riot would break out, hundreds of Catholics turned to the Eucharist.