Dear young friends, learn to pray every day: this is the way to know Jesus and invite him into your lives.
Interpretation
Prayer is essential for building a relationship with Jesus and developing spiritual awareness.
Pope Francis emphasizes the importance of daily prayer as a fundamental practice for young individuals to foster a personal connection with Jesus. By engaging in regular prayer, one opens their heart to receive guidance, love, and presence of Jesus in their lives, transforming their spiritual journey and deepening their faith.
In practice
During a youth retreat, I shared the quote to inspire young attendees to embrace prayer.
We are a church of sinners but we must not be afraid of holiness. Do not be afraid to aim for holiness and turn yourselves over to the love of God. Holiness does not mean performing extraordinary things but carrying out daily things in an extraordinary way that is with love, joy and faith.
I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers. May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable.
No one must say that they cannot be close to the poor because their own lifestyle demands more attention to other areas. This is an excuse commonly heard in academic, business or professional, and even ecclesial circles. While it is quite true that the essential vocation and mission of the lay faithful is to strive that earthly realities and all human activity may be transformed by the Gospel, none of us can think we are exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice
We face so many challenges in life: poverty, distress, humiliation, the struggle for justice, persecutions, the difficulty of daily conversion, the effort to remain faithful to our call to holiness, and many others. But if we open the door to Jesus and allow him to be part of our lives, if we share our joys and sorrows with him, then we will experience the peace and joy that only God, who is infinite love, can give.
More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.
This Christmas may we be consistent in living the Gospel, welcoming Jesus into the centre of our lives.
Prayer gives us strength for great ideals, for keeping up our faith, charity, purity, generosity; prayer gives us strength to rise up from indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give in to temptation and weakness. Prayer gives us light by which to see and to judge from God's perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up on praying!
A prayer less soul is a Christ less soul.
Prayer is the breath of the new man, drawing in the air of mercy in petitions, and returning it in praises; it proves and maintains the spiritual life.
If you are hungry to hear the voice of God, you will hear. To hear, you have to cut out all other things.
We pray not to inform God or instruct Him but to beseech Him closely, to be made intimate with Him, by continuance in supplication; to be humbled; to be reminded of our sins.
Vocal prayer . . . must be accompanied by reflection. A prayer in which a person is not aware of Whom he is speaking to, what he is asking, who it is who is asking and of Whom, I don't call prayer-however much the lips may move.
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