Pope: Christian life is no 'walk in the park', at times it is a struggle
The general audience returns to the San Damaso courtyard. Francis expresses his happiness at renewed contact with people: “I'll tell you one thing - he added - it's not nice to talk to nothing or a room, it's not nice!”. “Almost always, after postponing prayer, we realize that those things were not essential at all, and that we may have wasted time. This is how the Enemy deceives us.”
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Christian prayer, like all Christian life, is no a 'walk in the park’", in some moments "it is a struggle", a fight against "the enemy", in which we are not alone, even if at times we seem to be. "The battle of prayer" was the topic that Pope Francis spoke about in today's general audience, which returned to the San Damaso courtyard and contact with people.
Francis welcomed this and said he was “I'll tell you one thing - he added - it's not nice to talk to nothing or a room, it's not nice!”. “I'm glad to see you. Meet you, each with your own story”. "People who come from all over, from Italy, the United States, Colombia, and that little football team of four Swiss brothers, their little sister is missing, we hope she arrives ...". "We are all brothers in the Lord, and looking at each other helps us pray for one another. Take the Pope's message to everyone, and the Pope's message is that I pray for everyone and ask you to pray for me. United in prayer!”.
In fact, upon his arrival in the courtyard, Francis paused for about fifteen minutes among the thousands of people present: he took the white roses given to him by a group of nuns and the strange red headdress given to him by an Indian priest, he exchanged some jokes with an old lady and with a group of young people.
In his reflection, Francis stressed that "None of the great people of prayer we meet in the Bible and in the history of the Church found prayer “comfortable”. Yes, one can pray like a parrot – blah, blah, blah, blah, blah – but that is not prayer. Prayer certainly gives great peace, but through inner struggle, at times hard, which can accompany even long periods of life. Praying is not something easy, and this is why we flee from it. Every time we want to pray, we are immediately reminded of many other activities, which at that moment seem more important and more urgent. This happens to me too!”.
But “Every time we want to pray, we are immediately reminded of many other activities, which at that moment seem more important and more urgent. This happens to me too! It happens to me. I go to pray a little … and no, I must do this and that… We flee from prayer, I don’t know why, but that is how it is. Almost always, after putting off prayer, we realise that those things were not essential at all, and that we may have wasted time.” “Those who want to pray must remember that faith is not easy, and sometimes it moves forward in almost total darkness, without points of reference. here are moments in the life of faith that are dark.”
"Faced with the elusiveness of the divine, others suspect that prayer is a merely psychological operation; something that may be useful, but is neither true nor necessary: and one could even be a practitioner without being a believer. And so it goes on, many explanations. However, the worst enemies of prayer are found within us. The Catechism describes them thus: “Discouragement during periods of dryness; sadness that, because we have ‘great possessions’, we have not given all to the Lord; disappointment over not being heard according to our own will; wounded pride, stiffened by the indignity that is ours as sinners; our resistance to the idea that prayer is a free and unmerited gift” (2728). This is clearly a summary that could be extended.”
To combat temptation, the "masters of the soul" offered suggestions, such as the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola which "short book of great wisdom that teaches how to put one’s life in order. It makes us understand that the Christian vocation is militancy, it is the decision to stand beneath the standard of Jesus Christ and not under that of the devil.”
"In times of trial - he said later is good to remember that we are not alone, that someone is watching over us and protecting us". And “prayer is fighting”, and it works miracles. In this regard, Francis recounted an episode from when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. The father of a sick child, whose death the doctors had announced “he had great faith. He left, weeping; he left his wife there with the child in the hospital, he took the train and he travelled seventy kilometres towards the Basilica of Our Lady of Luján, Patroness of Argentina. And there – the Basilica was already closed, it was almost ten o’clock at night, in the evening – he clung to the grates of the Basilica and spent all night praying to Our Lady, fighting for his daughter’s health. This is not a figment of the imagination: I saw him! I saw him myself. That man there, fighting. At the end, at six o’clock in the morning, the Church opened, he entered to salute Our Lady, and returned home. And he thought: “She has left us. No, Our Lady cannot do this to me”. Then he went to see [his wife], and she was smiling, saying: “I don’t know what happened. The doctors said that something changed, and now she is cured”. That man, fighting with prayer, received the grace of Our Lady."
“Jesus - he resumed - is always with us: If in a moment of blindness we cannot see His presence, we will in the future. We will also end up repeating the same sentence that the patriarch Jacob said one day: “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it” (Gen 28:16). At the end of our lives, looking back, we too will be able to say: “I thought I was alone, but no, I was not: Jesus was with me”. We will all be able to say this."
In his greetings, addressing the Poles, he recalled that "tomorrow is the liturgical memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima and the 40th anniversary of the attack on St. John Paul II. He himself strongly emphasized that he owed his life to the Lady of Fatima. This event makes us aware that our life and the history of the world are in the hands of God. To the Immaculate Heart of Mary we entrust the Church, ourselves and the whole world. We pray for peace, an end to the pandemic, a spirit of penance and our conversion. "
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