Pope Benedict 16th Happy Birthday!

You, like everybody else on earth,
have made mistakes.
To use a religious word, you've sinned.
Your mistakes (sins) make it impossible
for you to know God all by yourself.
God is perfect and good in every respect,
and sinful people can't even be in the presence
of so much goodness. It doesn't matter if
your mistake was a little one or a big ugly one—
it's enough to separate you from God.
God loves you, despite your mistakes,
and wants to have a relationship with you.
God came up with a solution to this sin problem—
he sent his son Jesus to suffer the penalty
that your mistakes deserve. Jesus took your
mistakes upon himself so that you can be
perfect in God's eyes. After committing this
act of sacrifice, Jesus was raised from the
dead and acts as a go-between for you and God.
By simply believing in this—your sin, God's
love, and Jesus' sacrifice—you can enter a
relationship with God. That means that your
mistakes are washed away and you're invited
to live a new, transformed life—a life that's
based on something more meaningful than
money or power or keeping up with the Joneses.

If you ever feel you want something more in this world,
look to the New Testament,

God and the son Jesus Christ
will guide you if you believe.

God bless everyone!
God bless the day!