True prayer brings us out of ourselves and opens us to others' needs: Pope
Vatican City, 11 May 2013: True prayer brings us out of ourselves and opens us to
the Father and to the neediest of our brothers and sisters, said Pope Francis during
his Saturday morning Mass celebrated at St. Martha’s Residence in the Vatican. Among
those attending the Mass were members of Vatican Police and a group of Argentine journalists
and their families.
Focusing on the day's Gospel, where Jesus says: "If you
ask anything to the Father in my name, he will give it you, Pope Francis said that
there's something new here, something that changes. It is a novelty in prayer.
The
Father will give us everything, if we ask in the name of Jesus, said the Pope adding
that Jesus has ascended to the Father, and keep the doors open because "he Himself
is the door".
As a priest, he prays for us before the Father. The wounds of
Jesus are precisely his prayer of intercession to the Father. This is the news that
Jesus tells us. He tells us: have confidence in his passion, have confidence in his
victory over death, have confidence in his wounds. He is the priest and this is the
sacrifice, which gives us confidence, and courage to pray, said Pope Francis. So
many times we get bored in prayer, observed the Pope adding, prayer is not asking
for this or that, but it is "the intercession of Jesus’. The prayer that bores us
is always within ourselves, as a thought that comes and goes. But true prayer brings
us out of ourselves to the Father in the name of Jesus, and it is an exodus from ourselves.
There is another exodus from ourselves to the wounds of our brothers and our sisters
in need, explained the Pope.
There are two exits from ourselves, said the Pope:
one to the wounds of Jesus, the other to the wounds of our brothers and sisters. And
this is the way that Jesus wants us in our prayer. This is the new way to pray, concluded
the Pope.Source: VR Sedoc