Pope Francis on Prayer “I pray the breviary every morning. I like to pray with the psalms. Then, later, I celebrate Mass. I pray the Rosary. What I really prefer is adoration in the evening, even when I get distracted and think of other things, or even fall asleep praying. In the evening then, between seven and eight o’clock, I stay in front of the Blessed Sacrament for an hour in adoration. But I pray mentally even when I am waiting at the dentist or at other times of the day. “Prayer for me is always a prayer full of memory, of recollection, even the memory of my own history or what the Lord has done in his church or in a particular parish. For me it is the memory of which St. Ignatius speaks in the First Week of the Exercises in the encounter with the merciful Christ crucified. And I ask myself: ‘What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What should I do for Christ?’ It is the memory of which Ignatius speaks in the ‘Contemplation for Experiencing Divine Love,’ when he asks us to recall the gifts we have received. But above all, I also know that the Lord remembers me. I can forget about him, but I know that he never, ever forgets me. Memory has a fundamental role for the heart of a Jesuit: memory of grace, the memory mentioned in Deuteronomy, the memory of God’s works that are the basis of the covenant between God and the people. It is this memory that makes me his son and that makes me a father, too.” I realize that I could continue on with this conversation, but I know that, in the words of the pope himself, I ought not “mistreat the limits.” All in all, we spoke together for more than six hours over the course of three meetings on Aug. 19, 23 and 29, 2013. For the sake of continuity, I have chosen to write up our dialogue as one text, without marking the starting and stopping points of our various sessions. Our time together was, in truth, more a conversation than an interview, and my questions served simply to guide the discussion in a general sense, rather than enclose it within rigid and predefined parameters. From a linguistic point of view, we frequently shifted back and forth between Spanish and Italian, often without even noticing. There was nothing mechanical about it, and the answers were the result of an extended dialogue and a line of reasoning that I have tried to render here in a concise manner and to the best of my abilities.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Oct 2013 09:26:11 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015