Ancona, Italy, Sep 12, 2011 / 10:56 am
Pope Benedict XVI told 100,000 participants in an Italian Eucharistic congress that the world needs, more than anything else, to recover a sense of God's loving sovereignty over creation.
“It is the primacy of God which we must, first and foremost, restore in our world and our lives,” Pope Benedict said at the closing Mass for the gathering held in Ancona,“because it is this primacy which allows us to rediscover the truth of who we are; and it is in knowing and following the will of God that we discover our own good.”
History, the Pope noted, “has dramatically shown us” the failures that result from a “conviction that we can do everything alone, without God.” He said this“illusion” soon gives way to “disappointment, creating disquiet and fear.”
Pope Benedict traveled to Ancona from his summer residence Castel Gandolfo on the morning of Sept. 11. He celebrated Mass at the city's shipyard, marking the end of the 25thItalian National Eucharistic Congress on the theme of “the Eucharist for Daily Life.”