"Individuals who care for those in need must first be professionally competent: they should be properly trained in what to do and how to do it, and committed to continuing care. Yet, while professional competence is a primary, fundamental requirement, it is not of itself sufficient. We are dealing with human beings, and human beings [...]
"I encourage families in particular to draw inspiration and strength from this sacrament. The love between man and woman, openness to life, and the raising of children are privileged spheres in which the Eucharist can reveal its power to transform life and give it its full meaning." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament [...]
"Consequently, in addition to their necessary professional training, these charity workers need a 'formation of the heart': they need to be led to that encounter with God in Christ which awakens their love and opens their spirits to others. As a result, love of neighbor will no longer be for them a commandment imposed, so [...]
"The Eucharist, as a mystery to be 'lived', meets each of us as we are, and makes our concrete existence the place where we experience daily the radical newness of the Christian life. The eucharistic sacrifice nourishes and increases within us all that we have already received at Baptism, with its call to holiness, and [...]
"Christian charity is first of all the simple response to immediate needs and specific situations: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for and healing the sick, visiting those in prison, etc." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, God is Love: Deus Caritas Est, Ignatius Press, 2006.
"Hence the Eucharist, as the source and summit of the Church's life and mission, must be translated into spirituality, into a life lived 'according to the Spirit' (Rom 8:4ff.; cf. Gal 5:16, 25)." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament of Charity), 2/22/2007
"The increase in diversified organizations engaged in meeting various human needs is ultimately due to the fact that the command of love of neighbor is inscribed by the Creator in man’s very nature. It is also a result of the presence of Christianity in the world, since Christianity constantly revives and acts out this imperative, [...]
"Communion always and inseparably has both a vertical and a horizontal sense: it is communion with God and communion with our brothers and sisters. Both dimensions mysteriously converge in the gift of the Eucharist." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament of Charity), 2/22/2007
"Taking part in the liturgy and receiving the Body and Blood of Christ intensifies and deepens our belonging to the one who died for us. Truly, whoever eats of Christ lives for him." Source: Pope Benedict XVI, SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS (Sacrament of Charity), 2/22/2007
"Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint John’s Gospel describes that event in these words: 'God so loved the world he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in [...]