Benedict XVI's audience today reiterated a familiar, yet always timely, theme:

"Conversion", an invitation that we will hear many times in Lent, means following Jesus so that his Gospel is a real life guide, it means allowing God to transform us, no longer thinking that we are the only protagonists of our existence, recognizing that we are creatures who depend on God, His love, and that only by losing" our life in Him can we truly have it. This means making our choices in the light of the Word of God. Today we can no longer be Christians as a simple consequence of the fact that we live in a society that has Christian roots: even those born to a Christian family and formed in the faith must, each and every day, renew the choice to be a Christian, to give God first place, before the temptations continuously suggested by a secularized culture, before the criticism of many of our contemporaries.

Rather extraordinary was his reference to two singular spiritual figures: Etty Hillesum and Dorothy Day. The full reflection is here.