Instruct others in prayer by means of the Tradition of the Church
Many Christians today have a keen desire to learn how to experience a deeper and authentic prayer life despite the not inconsiderable difficulties which modern culture places in the way of the need for silence, recollection and meditation. […] Nevertheless, faced with this phenomenon, many feel the need for sure criteria of a doctrinal and pastoral character which might allow them to instruct others in prayer, in its numerous manifestations, while remaining faithful to the truth revealed in Jesus, by means of the genuine Tradition of the Church. […]
The ever more frequent contact with other religions and with their different styles and methods of prayer has, in recent decades, led many of the faithful to ask themselves what value non-Christian forms of meditation might have for Christians. […]
However, […] one needs to start with a certain clear premise. Christian prayer is always determined by the structure of the Christian faith, in which the very truth of God and creature shines forth. […] The Christian, even when he is alone and prays in secret, is conscious that he always prays for the good of the Church in union with Christ, in the Holy Spirit and together with all the Saints.
Excerpts from: ST. JOHN PAUL II.
Orationis formas, letter published by the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, 15/10/1989
Prayer is a personal relationship with the living, true God
Man bears within himself a thirst for the infinite, a longing for eternity, a quest for beauty, a desire for love, a need for light and for truth which impel him towards the Absolute; man bears within himself the desire for God. And man knows, in a certain way, that he can turn to God; he knows he can pray to Him.
St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest theologians of history, defines prayer as “an expression of man’s desire for God.” This attraction to God, which God Himself has placed in man, is the soul of prayer […].
Yet only in God who reveals Himself does man’s seeking find complete fulfilment. The prayer that is openness and elevation of the heart to God, thus becomes a personal relationship with Him. And even if man forgets his Creator, the living, true God does not cease to call man first to the mysterious encounter of prayer.
Excerpts from: BENEDICT XVI.
General Audience, 11/5/2011
Need to unite the true and worthy concept of God to His name
The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God.
Whoever follows that […] substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who “Reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other and she orders all things well” (Wis 8:1). Neither is he a believer in God.
Excerpts from: PIUS XI.
Mit Brennender Sorge, 14/3/1937
Do not use the name of God as a meaningless label
Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your influence on the Faithful, that they refuse to yield to this aberration.
Our God is the Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, one in the Trinity of Persons, tri-personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all existence. Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the history of the world, who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival god by His side.
Excerpts from: PIUS XI.
Mit Brennender Sorge, 14/3/1937
Nobody, therefore, can say: “I believe in God, and that is enough religion for me”
No faith in God can for long survive pure and unalloyed without the support of faith in Christ. “No one knows who the Son is except the Father: and who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him” (Lk 10:22). […]
Nobody, therefore, can say: “I believe in God, and that is enough religion for me,” for the Saviour’s words brook no evasion: “No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also” (1 Jn 2:23).
Excerpts from: PIUS XI.
Mit Brennender Sorge, 14/3/1937
Only through Christ can we converse with God as children
Prayer is the relationship of children with their Father, and only in Christ can we converse with God as children, as He did: “Abba”
We must remember first of all that prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with His Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit […]
In fact, only through Christ can we converse with God the Father as children, otherwise it is not possible, but in communion with the Son we can also say, as He did, “Abba”.
In communion with Christ we can know God as our true Father (cf. Mt 11:27). For this reason Christian prayer consists in looking constantly at Christ and in an ever new way, speaking to Him, being with Him in silence, listening to Him, acting and suffering with Him. […]
But let us not forget: it is in the Church that we discover Christ, that we know Him as a living Person.
Excerpts from: BENEDICT XVI.
General Audience, 3/10/2012
Through prayer we can open windows to Heaven
Today Christians are called to be witnesses of prayer precisely because our world is often closed to the divine horizon and to the hope that brings the encounter with God. In deep friendship with Jesus and living in Him and with Him the filial relationship with the Father, through our constant and faithful prayer we can open windows on God’s Heaven. […]
Let us train ourselves in an intense relationship with God, with prayer that is not occasional but constant, full of faith, capable of illuminating our lives, as Jesus taught us.
Excerpts from: BENEDICT XVI.
General Audience, 30/11/2011
