The Pope said this on Monday, his 80th birthday, during lunch in the Apostolic Palace with members of the College of Cardinals who were in Rome.
"Our times, each day, the vicissitudes of our life, our luck, our actions, all are in God's good hands," he told the cardinals.
"This is the great confidence with which we go forward, knowing that God's hands are sustained by the hands and the hearts of many cardinals. This is the motive of my great joy on this day," the Holy Father said.
"The true gift of this day for me is the prayer that gives me the certainty that I am accepted from the inside," Benedict XVI added, "and above all, helped and supported in my Petrine ministry, a ministry which could not be carried out alone, but only in communion with all those who help me, praying that the Lord be with us and with me."
Code: ZE07041706
Date: 2007-04-17