MEETING 2010
TRULY WE ARE MADE FOR GREAT THINGS

The Meeting opened with Benedict XVI’s message, sent to the Bishop of Rimini through Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Bertone, in which the Pope spoke of the thirst of man, and reminded us, “Learning to pray is learning to desire, hence learning to live.”
Your Most Reverend Excellency,I am pleased to express the Holy Father’s cordial greeting to you, Your Excellency, to the organizers, and to all who are taking part in the Meeting for Friendship among Peoples in Rimini.
This year the theme of your important event: “That Nature which Pushes Us to Desire Great Things Is the Heart,” reminds us that in the depths of every human being is an irrepressible restlessness that impels him to seek something that satisfies his yearning. Every person understands that in the realization of his heart’s deepest desires he can fulfill himself, he can become truly himself.
Men and women know that they cannot respond alone to their own needs. However much they may deceive themselves, they find out that they are not self-sufficient; they experience that they are not enough for themselves. They need to open themselves to something other, to something or someone who can give them what they lack. They must, so to speak, go out of themselves toward what is able to fulfill the breadth of their desire.
As the Meeting’s theme emphasizes, the ultimate goal of the human heart is not just anything that may be momentarily satisfying but only the “great things.” Women and men are often tempted to stop at the small things, those that give satisfaction and pleasure “on the cheap,” those that gratify for a moment, things that are as easy to obtain as they are, ultimately, illusory. (…)
God came into the world to reawaken our thirst for “great things.” This can be clearly seen in the infinitely rich Gospel passage of Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 4: 5-42) on which St. Augustine has left us a luminous commentary. The Samaritan woman was experiencing the existential dissatisfaction of those who have not yet found what they seek: she had had “five husbands” and was living with another man. The woman had gone to Jacob’s well to draw water as usual and found Jesus sitting there in the midday heat. After asking her for a drink, Jesus Himself offered her not just any water, but “living water” that could quench her thirst. So it was that He made room for Himself “little by little... in her heart” (Augustine, Commentary on the Gospel of John, XV, 12), kindling the desire for something deeper than merely the quenching of physical thirst. St. Augustine commented, “He who asks for water, thirsted for the desire of that woman” (Ibid.,XV,11). God thirsts for our thirst of Him.
The Holy Spirit, symbolized by the “living water” of which Jesus spoke, is precisely that living power that satisfies the most profound thirst and gives us total life, that life that we seek and await without knowing it. The Samaritan then left on the ground her water jar “that by now she no longer needed; actually, it had become a burden: by now she was avid to quench her thirst only of that water” (Ibid.  XV,30).
The disciples of Emmaus had a similar experience with Jesus. It is still the Lord who makes “their hearts burn” as they walked “with sad face” (cf. Lk 24:13-35). Even without recognizing the Risen Jesus, as they walked beside Him they felt their hearts burning within them, enlivening them, so that once they had arrived they “constrained” Him, saying: “Stay with us, Lord.” This is an expression of the desire vibrant in the heart of every human being; this desire for “great things” must be transformed into prayer. The Fathers held that praying is nothing other than changing oneself into heart-thawing desire for the Lord. In a beautiful text, St. Augustine defines prayer as expression of desire and affirms that God responds, enlarging our heart toward Him: “God… evoking desire in us, extends our soul; and extending our soul, makes it capable of welcoming Him” (Comment on the First Letter of John, IV, 6). For our part, we must purify our desires and hopes if we are to be able to welcome God’s gentleness. (...) It is told that, in one of his moments of prayer, St. Thomas Aquinas heard the Crucified Lord ask him, “You have written well of Me, Thomas; what do you desire?” “Nothing other than You,” was the reply of the holy Doctor of the Church. “Nothing other than You.” Learning to pray is learning to desire, hence learning to live.
Five years after the death of Msgr. Luigi Giussani, the Pope is spiritually united with the members of the Movement of Communion and Liberation. As he said at the Audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 24, 2007, “Fr. Giussani then committed himself to awaken in youth the love for Christ, ‘Way, Truth and Life,’ repeating that only He is the way towards the fulfillment of the deepest desires of the human heart.”
As I entrust these thoughts to those taking part in the Meeting, in the hope that they will be helpful for knowing, encountering, and loving the Lord more and more, and for witnessing in our time that the “great things” for which the human heart yearns are found in God, His Holiness Benedict XVI assures you of his prayers and very gladly imparts his Apostolic Blessing to you, Your Excellency, to those in charge, to the organizers, and to everyone present. I cordially add also my own good wishes. 
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone
Secretary of State