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Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - What is prayer? How should we pray? Pope Francis answers these questions during today's general audience in St. Peter's Square.
First, however, Pope Francis paused in prayer before the statue of the Virgen de los desamparados, Our Lady who takes care of the poor, Patroness of Valencia. "Valencia, which is suffering greatly, and also other parts of Spain, but Valencia which is underwater and suffering. I wanted her to be here, the Patroness of Valencia. Today, in a special way, let us pray for Valencia and for the other areas of Spain that are suffering because of the water," said the Pope. As part of the cycle of catechesis on the Holy Spirit, the Pope today spoke about prayer, because "in addition to the Word of God and the Sacraments," "the sanctifying action" of the third person of the Trinity is "expressed."
In Christian prayer, Pope Francis emphasizes, "the Holy Spirit is both the subject and object of Christian prayer. That is, He is the One who gives prayer and He is the One who is given by prayer."
"First of all," continued the Bishop of Rome, "we must pray to receive the Holy Spirit." The New Testament says that the Holy Spirit "always descends during prayer." This, said the Pope, is the only " ‘power’ we have over the Spirit of God. He does not resist prayer. We pray, and He comes." And the Church, the Pope noted, "follows this example faithfully: she always has the imploration “Come! Come!” on her lips, especially at Mass.” But there is another aspect “which is the most important and encouraging for us: the Holy Spirit is He who gives us the true prayer… It is true that we do not know how to pray, we must learn it every day.” Pope Francis sums up the reason for this weakness with a Latin proverb that expresses it with a single word used in three different ways: as an adjective, as a noun and as an adverb: “We human beings, according to that saying, “mali, mala, male petimus”, which means, being bad (mali), we ask for the wrong things (mala) and in the wrong way (male)”.
And the Holy Spirit not only comes to the aid of our weakness, but “He does something more important still: He testifies to us that we are children of God and puts on our lips the cry: “Abba! Father!”… Christian prayer is not man at one end of the telephone, speaking to God on the other; no, it is God who prays in us! We pray to God through God”.
In prayer, the Holy Spirit reveals himself “as the “Paraclete”, that is, advocate and defender. He does not accuse us before the Father, but defends us. Yes, He defends us, He convinces us of the fact that we are sinners, but He does so in order to make us able to savour the joy of the Father’s mercy, not to destroy us with fruitless feelings of guilt."
God is "greater than our sin. We are all sinners... If there is anyone among you who is afraid of being rebuked by God because of the things he has done... and cannot find peace: pray, call on the Holy Spirit! He will teach you how to ask for forgiveness... God does not know much grammar, and when we ask for forgiveness, He does not let us finish! He does not let us finish the word forgiveness. He forgives us first, He always forgives, and He is always beside us to forgive us, before we complete the word forgiveness...
"The Holy Spirit intercedes," said Pope Francis, "and He also teaches us how to intercede, in turn, for our brothers and sisters; He teaches us the prayer of intercession. This prayer is particularly pleasing to God, because it is the most gratuitous and altruistic. When someone prays for everyone, it happens – as Saint Ambrose used to say – that everyone prays for someone; prayer multiplies... But please: do not pray like parrots. Pray with your heart, not with your lips," the Pope concluded his catechesis.
And before the final blessing, the Pope again invited people to pray for peace: "Let us pray for peace. Let us not forget the tormented Ukraine, which is suffering so much, let us not forget Gaza, Israel" and "Let us not forget Myanmar". (F.B.) (Agenzia Fides, 6/11/2024)
