Pope Francis stated that “prayer opens the heart to the Lord” and, by doing so, the Holy Spirit enters and “changes your life.”
This is indicated by the Holy Father in the preface of the book As Jesus taught us. The prayer of the pilgrims of hope by Ediciones San Pablo, which will be published on October 9, with reflections, some unpublished, by Pope Francis on prayer.
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“Prayer opens your heart to the Lord, and when the Spirit enters, it changes your life inside. So you have to pray, open your heart and leave room for the Spirit. We pray to Jesus, to the Father, to the Virgin, but we do not usually speak to the Holy Spirit in prayer. Instead, it is the Holy Spirit who changes our heart, enters our heart and changes it,” the Pope emphasizes in the text.
“Some moments of aridity”
The preface, collected by Vatican News in Spanish, has been published by the newspaper Futureof the Italian bishops. There the Pope remembers that he learned to pray from his grandmother and from various spiritual teachers such as the Argentine Jesuit priest Miguel Ángel Fiorito.
“He taught me to pray as a son and not looking for the sweets of consolation: how do you pray? How to get used to praying? What to do when there is consolation or even desolation, when there is no desire to pray? “He has been for me a teacher of spiritual life,” the Pontiff writes about Father Fiorito.
The Holy Father also comments that, in general, his prayer now as Pope is the same as always and “nothing has changed.”
“Sometimes some vocal prayers, sometimes before the Blessed Sacrament I endure some moments of aridity. My prayer has continued with the beautiful things and the not so beautiful things. Sometimes I think I have to pray more, yes. There is no time, but I must pray more.”
The Pontiff explains that he prays the Liturgy of the Hours, the prayer that the entire Church prays at different times, and “the great prayer” of “trust” that is the Lord’s Prayer.
“Our Lady of the miscreants”
Pope Francis then refers to prayers to the Virgin Mary as the Rosary and comments that he always prays this prayer. About the Mother of God he states: “I like to feel her close, because she is Mother and guides us.”
The Pope also tells the legend of “Our Lady of miscreants, protector of thieves.” “They steal, but as they pray, when one of them dies, the Virgin, who is in the window of paradise, tells him to hide. And he tells him not to go to Pedro, that he will not let him enter. But at sunset, he opens the window of paradise and lets him enter from there. I like this: the Virgin is the one who lets you enter through the window. “It’s almost contraband.”
“If the Church does not support you with prayer, you are finished”
“It is also because of this trust that I always ask people to pray for me at the end of my public speeches. I need the community to support me in this service to the Church. If the Church does not support you with prayer, you are finished,” Francis highlights.
Walter Sanchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.