Pope urges children to cultivate lifelong friendship with Jesus

Published: 2005-10-17

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI urged children to cultivate a lifelong friendship with Jesus because he would guide them, help them make the right decisions in life and help them become better people. "We need this friendship with God, who helps us make the right decisions, to mature as human adults," he said Oct. 15 to a crowd of nearly 150,000 people, mostly young children who had celebrated their first Communion earlier this year. During a colorful, festive ceremony in St. Peter's Square featuring clowns, people on stilts, singers and dancers, the pope led eucharistic adoration as well as a warm and informal catechesis based on the questions posed to him by several children. One by one, seven children came up to the pope and asked him questions on the microphone about why it is important to go to Mass and to confession and what their teachers mean by the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

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