The Pope: “If you hate you can’t pray, you just pretend”

Patricia Ynestroza-Vatican City

“He who prays never leaves the world behind. If prayer does not collect the joys and sorrows, the hopes and the anxieties of humanity, it becomes an “decorative”, intimate activity. We all need interiority: a retreat into a space and time dedicated to our relationship with God. But that does not mean escaping reality, ”Pope Francis said during catechesis, speaking of prayer.

In prayer, God “takes us, blesses us, then breaks us and gives us”, for the hunger of all. Therefore, “every Christian is called to become, in the hands of God, the bread broken and shared”. Further, the Pope said that if you hate yourself you cannot pray; if you are indifferent you cannot pray. “Prayer takes place only in a spirit of love. Those who do not love pretend to pray, or think they are praying, but they do not pray because they do not have the spirit, which is love ”.

Men and women of prayer

Men and women of prayer seek solitude and silence, not so as not to be disturbed, the Pope underlined, but to better hear the voice of God. To do this, they sometimes withdraw from the world, in the secrecy of their own room, as Jesus himself recommends, but wherever they are, he asserted, they always have the door of their hearts open. : an open door for those who pray without knowing it. they pray; for those who do not pray at all but carry in a stifled cry, a hidden invocation; for those who have erred and gone astray … “Anyone can knock on the door of a praying person and find in him a compassionate heart that prays without excluding anyone.”

And it is because, as the Holy Father said, in solitude, he separates himself from everything and everyone to find everything and everyone in God. So, “the person who prays prays for the whole world, bearing pain and sins on his shoulders. Pray for each and everyone: it is as if it were an “antenna” of God in this world. In every poor person who knocks at the door, in every person who has lost the sense of things, he who prays sees the face of Christ. The Catechism writes: “Intercede, ask in the name of another […] the characteristic of a heart according to the mercy of God. In the days of the Church, Christian intercession participates in that of Christ: it is the expression of the communion of saints ”(n. 2635).

“Prayer is concerned with man. Simply man. He who does not love his brother does not pray seriously. In the Church, who knows the sadness or the joy of the other goes deeper than he does. which investigates “maximum systems.” This is why there is a human experience in every sentence, because people, although they may make mistakes, should never be rejected or dismissed.

The believer prays for everyone

The Pontiff in his catechesis also recalled that when a believer, animated by the Holy Spirit, prays for sinners, he does not make a choice, he does not pass judgment of condemnation: he prays for all. And he also prays for himself. At that point, he says, he knows he is not too different from the people he prays for. And he affirmed that the lesson of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is still alive and current: we, he asserted, are no better than anyone, we are all brothers in a community of frailty, of suffering and of sinners. This is why one prayer that we can address to God is this: “Lord, no living being is right before you (cf. Must 143.2), we are all debtors who have an unpaid account; there is none that is perfect for you. Lord, have mercy on us! “The world moves forward thanks to this chain of interceding prayers, he said, and which are for the most part unknown … but not to God!” There are many unknown Christians who, in times of persecution, have been able to repeat the words of our Lord: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” “

Because, as the Pope said, the good shepherd remains faithful also in the face of the confirmation of the sin of his own people: he continues to be a father also when his children go away and abandon him. He perseveres in the service of the pastor also towards those who cause him to get his hands dirty; he does not close his heart to someone who may have made him suffer. and the Church, in all its members, has the mission of practicing intercessory prayer. In particular, says Francis finally, it is the duty of those who have a responsible role: parents, educators, ordained ministers, superiors of the community … “Like Abraham and Moses, they must sometimes” defend “the people before God. entrusted to In reality, it is a matter of looking with the eyes and the heart of God, with his same invincible compassion and tenderness. We are all leaves of the same tree: each detachment reminds us of the great piety that we must nurture, in prayer, those for others “.