Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

... the thing that kept Christ on that cross was love, not the nail.

Christ has no velvet crosses.

True love, unlike popular sentimental substitutes, is willing to suffer. Love is not "luv." Love is the cross. Our problem at first, the sheer problem of suffering, was a cross without Christ. We must never fall into the opposite and equal trap of a Christ without a cross.

A cross borne in simplicity, without the interference of self-love to augment it, is only half a cross. Suffering in this simplicity of love, we are not only happy in spile of the cross, but because of it; for love is pleased in suffering for the Well Beloved, and the cross which forms us into His image is a consoling bond of love.

True love goes ever straight forward, not in its own strength, but esteeming itself as nothing. Then indeed we are truly happy. The cross is no longer a cross when there is no self to suffer under it.

What is the "extraordinary"? It is the love of Jesus Christ himself, love that goes to the cross in suffering obedience.

The Cross will be for us as it was for Christ: proof of the greatest love.

Jesus Christ has to suffer and be rejected... Suffering and being rejected are not the same.

The cross is the price of true love. Lord, give us the strength to accept and carry our crosses!

Even if loving meant leaving, or solitude, or sorrow, love was worth every penny of its price.

My life is so full of sacrifices.

It is by suffering that human beings become angels.

If Love dwelt not in Trouble, it could have nothing to love. But its substance which it loves, namely the poor soul, being in trouble and pain, it hath thence cause to love this its own substance and to deliver it from pain, that so itself may by it be again beloved.

Out of love for His Father and for us, He allowed Himself to suffer beyond the capacity of mortal man. He told us some of what that infinite sacrifice required of Him.

Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.

When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

I think you have to pay for love with bitter tears.

Love is the funeral of hearts.

Pain is love.

I think loss of loved ones is the hardest blow in life.

One half of my life has put the other half in the grave.

My family has sacrificed a lot.

From love one can only escape at the price of life itself; and no lessening of sorrow is worth exile from that stream of all things human and divine.

Following Jesus is simple, but not easy. Love until it hurts, and then love more.

Even going to jail would be easy compared to losing you.