It’s easy to get discouraged by the darkness and tensions of this world: terrorist-led carnage, presidential politics and our society’s continued turning away from God and his saving grace.

Yet God always has filled the breach of our worldliness with his merciful goodness. Throughout the countless wars, revolutions and inhumanities in the past, he has always inspired men and women of holy greatness to aid the Church, and thereby the world, in its need — Benedict of Nursia, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Avila and Bernadette of Lourdes, to name a few.

He is doing so now, with the spiritual children of saints of the last century: Maximilian Kolbe, Faustina, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Pier Giorgio Frassati, Mother Teresa and John Paul II.

As millions of pilgrims return from World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland, invigorated by their encounter with Pope Francis and the heroic lives of saintly Catholic witnesses, I have no doubt that God will call many young men and women into holy service for his Church to meet the specific needs of our time.

Let us pray to remain people of hope, who can see light despite the darkness, and always seek to surround ourselves with goodness, prayer and the sacraments. May God inspire each one of us to holy greatness.

God bless you!