Scottish Catholic Observer

Catholics are called to bring hope, happiness and life to a world marked by despair, sadness and death, Pope Benedict XVI has said.

Believing in Christ and his resurrection means bringing new life to others and ‘dedicating oneself without reserve to the most urgent and just causes’ with God’s grace and his logic of love, the Pope said yesterday at his weekly general audience.

More than 20,000 people packed into St Peter’s Square, many of them young Italian students who were still off from school for the Easter holidays. Banners commemorating Pope John Paul II and his pontificate were hung between the columns surrounding the square in the run-up to the late Polish Pope’s Beatification on Sunday.

For his catechesis, Pope Benedict looked at the meaning of Easter and Christ’s resurrection for the Christian community.

“Faith in the Risen Christ transforms existence, working in us a continuous resurrection’ in which Christians are called to renew themselves every day by putting the values Christ taught into action,” he said.

Easter can be lived every day ‘by putting to death the things of this earth and setting our hearts on the things that are on high,’ he added, echoing a passage from St Paul’s Letter to the Colossians.

By seeking what is above and not what is on earth, the apostle was not urging people to scorn or alienate themselves from the real world, the pope said.

The Holy Father also welcomed pilgrims from the tiny Mediterranean island of Lampedusa to St Peter’s Square to the audience and urged Europeans facing an influx of immigrants from war-torn North Africa to ‘continue their valued commitment to solidarity with our brother migrants’.  Although a part of Italy, the isle is closer to the coast of Tunisia and has been the first port of call for those fleeing the fighting in northern Africa.

“I greet the faithful of Lampedusa and encourage them to continue their valued commitment to solidarity with our brother migrants, who find in their island a host of first asylum, at the same time I hope that the competent bodies to continue the necessary action to protect the social interests of every citizen,” the Pope said.

At the end of the general audience, the Holy Father was flown by helicopter back to the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome. The Pontiff is staying at the Papal villa until Saturday, ahead of the beatification of his predecessor Pope John Paul II.