In his homily at Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis invites Christians to pray with faith, perseverance and courage at this time of difficulty due to the pandemic.
POPE FRANCIS
Faith and perseverance go together, because if you have faith, you are sure the Lord will give you what you ask. If the Lord makes you wait, knock, knock, knock and God will give the grace. But the Lord does not act like this to make it more interesting or because he says, 'it's better he waits.' No. He does it for our own good, so that we take things seriously.
The pope asked Christians to reflect on how to pray, and to pray with faith that the Lord will intervene. Pope Francis' remembered that 'God does not disappoint.'
EXTRACTS OF PAPAL HOMILY
|(Source: Vatican Media)
“Many times prayer is only oral from the mouth…but it doesn't come from the faith in the heart, or it's a weak faith.”
“Faith and prayer; to pray with faith…. I pray either with faith or out of habit. Let's be attentive when we pray not to fall into routine, without the awareness that the Lord is here, that I'm speaking with the Lord and He is able to resolve problems.”
“Some people ask and then the grace doesn't come. They don't have this perseverance because deep down they don't need it or they don’t have faith”.
“Faith and perseverance go together because if you have faith you're sure that the Lord will give you what you are asking. If the Lord makes you wait, knock and knock and knock. In the end the Lord gives the grace.”
“ ‘Is courage necessary to pray?’, someone might think. To remain before the Lord: yes, it’s necessary. It’s almost, almost, I don’t want to say a heresy, but almost as if we're threatening the Lord. Moses’s courage before God when God wanted to destroy the people…. Abraham’s courage when he negotiates the salvation of Sodom. ‘What if there are 30? What if there are 20?’ Courage. This virtue of courage is very much needed, not only for apostolic works, but also for prayer.”
“Faith, perseverance and courage. In these days, it's necessary to pray more. Imagine if we were to pray like this. With faith – that the Lord can intervene; with perseverance and with courage. The Lord never deludes. He makes us wait. He takes His time. But he never deludes. Faith, perseverance and courage.”
Daniel Díaz Vizzi
Translation: Melissa Butz
