"So many children are suffering."
The pope's meditation for the general audience was on the fourth beatitude: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, because they will be satisfied."
"We have already encountered poverty in spirit and weeping; now we are confronted with another type of weakness, that connected with hunger and thirst," he said, adding that hunger and thirst are "primary needs, they concern survival."
"This must be emphasized," he stated. "Here it is not a question of a generic desire, but of a vital and daily need, such as nourishment."
He noted that, though injustice hurts humanity, hunger and thirst for justice is not about revenge, but about Christ's justice, which is "even more profound than the legitimate need for human justice that every man carries in his heart."
Pope Francis pointed to scripture, where "we find a deeper thirst expressed."
Psalm 63 says: "O God, you are my God, at dawn I seek you, my soul is thirsty for you, my flesh yearns for you, as a deserted, arid land, without water."
"The Fathers speak of this fruitful restlessness that lives in the heart of man," the pope said. "There is an interior thirst, an interior hunger," like that expressed by St. Augustine: "You made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart does not find peace until it rests in you."
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.