Pope Benedict Calls Catholic Students to Sanctity

In a recent Vatican News Brief regarding Pope Benedict XVI's visit to England, there is a very moving speech where he urges Catholic students to sanctity:

"It is not often that a Pope", said Benedict XVI, "has the opportunity to speak to the students of all the Catholic schools of England, Wales and Scotland at the same time. And since I have the chance now, there is something I very much want to say to you. I hope that among those of you listening to me today there are some of the future saints of the twenty-first century".

"Perhaps some of you have never thought about this before. ... Let me explain what I mean. ... When I invite you to become saints, I am asking you not to be content with second best. I am asking you not to pursue one limited goal and ignore all the others. ... Happiness is something we all want, but one of the great tragedies in this world is that so many people never find it, because they look for it in the wrong places. The key to it is very simple - true happiness is to be found in God. We need to have the courage to place our deepest hopes in God alone, not in money, in a career, in worldly success, or in our relationships with others, but in God. Only He can satisfy the deepest needs of our hearts.

"Not only does God love us with a depth and an intensity that we can scarcely begin to comprehend, but He invites us to respond to that love", the Pope added. "And once you enter into friendship with God, everything in your life begins to change. ... You are attracted to the practice of virtue. You begin to see greed and selfishness and all the other sins for what they really are, destructive and dangerous tendencies that cause deep suffering and do great damage. ... You begin to feel compassion for people in difficulties and you are eager to do something to help them. ... And once these things begin to matter to you, you are well on the way to becoming saints".

The Holy Father went on: "In your Catholic schools, there is always a bigger picture over and above the individual subjects you study, the different skills you learn. All the work you do is placed in the context of growing in friendship with God, and all that flows from that friendship. ... Never allow yourselves to become narrow. The world needs good scientists, but a scientific outlook becomes dangerously narrow if it ignores the religious or ethical dimension of life, just as religion becomes narrow if it rejects the legitimate contribution of science to our understanding of the world. We need good historians and philosophers and economists, but if the account they give of human life within their particular field is too narrowly focused, they can lead us seriously astray".