““The vocation to the priesthood, according to your memoirs, ‘naturally matured within me without any grand conversion experiences’. If there was nothing grand, were there little spiritual experiences, at least? I would say it was my entering ever more deeply into the liturgy. Genuinely to recognize liturgy as the central point and seeking to understand it, together with the whole historical tapestry standing behind it. We had a teacher of religion who was writing a book about the Roman station churches.11 In a sense he used the religious instruction to prepare his book. Through him we learned the historical roots really well, very concretely. That was something that gave me real joy. With this I was then altogether preoccupied with religious questions. It is the world in which I feel most at home.””
![“In a letter to the Christkind you asked for a Missal, a set of green vestments for dressing up, and picture of the sacred heart.1 You were seven years old, isn’t this very unusual? [Laughs] Yes, but for us to participate in the liturgy really was from the very beginning a constitutive and noble…” quote by Pope Benedict XVI](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/23a/pope-benedict-xvi-414_quote_in-a-letter-to-the-christkind-you-asked_2256688.jpg)
![“One of the promising indications of a renewal in the Church's missionary consciousness in recent decades, has been the growing desire of many lay men and women [...] to cooperate generously in the 'missio ad gentes.' As Vatican Council II stressed, the work of evangelization is a fundamental duty…” quote by Pope Benedict XVI](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f7c/pope-benedict-xvi-414_ads_one-of-the-promising-indications-of-a-re_71852.jpg)
