The Church is alive and we are seeing it: we are experiencing the joy that the Risen Lord promised his followers.

The Church is alive—she is alive because Christ is alive, because he is truly risen.

In the suffering that we saw on the Holy Father’s face in those days of Easter, we contemplated the mystery of Christ’s Passion, and we touched his wounds.

But throughout these days we have also been able, in a profound sense, to touch the Risen One. We have been able to experience the joy that he promised, after a brief period of darkness, as the fruit of his Resurrection….

At this moment there is no need for me to present a program of governance…. There will be other opportunities to do so. My real program of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the whole Church, to the word and the will of the Lord, to be guided by him, so that he himself will lead the Church at this hour of our history.