Excerpts from the homily by Cardinal Adrianus Simonis, Primate of Holland. La Thuile, Italy, Sunday, August 26th.

We are living–allow me to say it–a strange time, a complicated time. Yes, a period of very serious crisis, which we can call even a change of history, and a period of crisis naturally influences, has consequences for our faith, for the Church, and for each one who at least tries to live it in good conscience.

Brothers and sisters, why am I so concerned about this topic of the crisis of culture and of faith? Now, in reference to today, my thoughts went spontaneously to the Pope’s Apostolic Letter, Novo millennio ineunte. In it, he starts from the fact that our continent, particularly, is facing a cultural change that places it in front of an uncertain future. At least in our old Europe, there are so many grave signs of crisis, both in the Church and in society (concerning the Church, we can even think only of the tremendous lack of priestly vocations and, what is more distressing, the lack of religious vocations). The Pope knows all this better than anyone else, but what does he do? Instead of imitating the lamentations of Jeremiah or hurling accusations, he leads us to the person of Christ. Christ is the one who says to the Apostles, after a night of working in vain, “Duc in altum.” “Go out where the sea is deeper and cast your nets again.” The Pope makes us start over again from Christ and His promise: “I am with you always until the end of time.”

Then he draws our attention to the question Peter puts to Christ immediately after his address to the crowd at Pentecost: “What are we to do?” Yes, what are we ourselves to do about the many problems facing us as Christ’s Church? The Pope says, literally, “We shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which He gives us: ‘I am with you!’” He goes on, “It is not, therefore, a matter of inventing a new program. The program already exists; it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition and it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its center in Christ Himself, who is to be known, loved, and imitated, so that with Him we may transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem.”

In reality, brothers and sisters, we are told that we are not dominated by blind fate, but that the Spirit of God makes us capable, despite everything, of going on, of persevering and living resolutely so as to start again.

One might say that Jesus takes pleasure in demolishing all of man’s standpoints and his false self-assurance, so that man may finally recognize that no one saves himself by his own efforts, but that God alone saves by His grace and love, guiding us men along His ways. Along His ways: but how could there be another way than the way that is Jesus, who revealed Himself to be “the Way”?

“Try to enter through the narrow gate.” This is the educative way of Jesus, which is understood so well by our Pope, but also by Fr Giussani. In no way does he mechanically repeat the Pope, but he is like the Holy Father, moved by the same Holy Spirit of truth and love. In a particularly pedagogical way, he knows how to convince thousands of people of the truth of the person Jesus Christ and His Gospel; and I too feel indebted and grateful for this grace.

I feel completely at home here among you–if I can say so–more or less as in the house in Nazareth: a true Christian family, where Catholicism, our Catholic faith, and yes, true Christian joy, are the normal conditions of life. That this grace may be given to many others, especially the many far away who are seeking the real meaning of life, this we ask through the intercession of Abraham, through the intercession of Mary and Joseph.