(October 18, 2010) Prayer must be the expression of faith in the goodness of God,
otherwise it is not true prayer said Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday. He made the reflection
at a canonization Mass in St. Peter's Square in which he proclaimed six new saints
for the Catholic Church, including Australia’s first saint. They are Stanislaw Soltys
Kazimierczyk of Poland, Bro. André Bessette of Canada, Cándida María de Jesús Cipitria
y Barriola of Spain, Mary of the Cross MacKillop of Australia and two Italians, Giulia
Salzano and Battista Camilla Varano. In his homily, the Holy Father reflected on
Sunday’s Gospel parable of the unjust judge and the importunate widow, where Jesus
speaks of the necessity of praying always, without tiring. "Sometimes we grow tired
of prayer, we have the impression that prayer is not very useful for life, that it
is not very effective," the Pope said. "Thus, we are tempted to dedicate ourselves
to activity, to employ every human method to accomplish our goals, and we do not approach
God. But Jesus says that we must pray always, and he does this through a specific
parable" – that of the unjust judge and the importunate widow. “If a dishonest judge
in the end allows himself to be convinced by the entreaties of a widow, how much more
will God, who is good, listen to those who pray. God in fact is generosity in person,
he is merciful, and so he is always disposed to listen to prayers. In this regard,
the Holy Father offered brief reflections on each of the new saints, speaking in several
of the saints' native languages. At the end, he called the faithful to "give thanks
to the Lord for the gift of holiness, which shines in the Church and today illumines
the faces of these brothers and sisters of ours." At the end of the Canonization
Mass Pope Benedict recited the midday ‘angelus’ Marian prayer, during which he offered
brief reflections about the sanctity of the four women and two men he declared as
saints.