{"id":87424,"date":"2026-03-03T17:21:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/?p=87424"},"modified":"2026-03-03T17:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:24:15","slug":"unpublished-letter-by-benedict-xvi-what-prayer-is-and-is-not-according-to-the-german-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/2026\/03\/03\/unpublished-letter-by-benedict-xvi-what-prayer-is-and-is-not-according-to-the-german-pope\/","title":{"rendered":"Unpublished letter by Benedict XVI: what prayer is and is not, according to the German pope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A previously unpublished letter written by Pope Benedict XVI on April 27, 2021\u2014just over a year before his death\u2014has come to light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Published in the book <em>The Faith of the Future,<\/em> the pope emeritus reflects on the relational nature of Christian prayer. He explains that it has a unique characteristic: it is not limited to asking Jesus for things, but primarily consists in remaining in divine communion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<em>Jesus is at once man and God and can thus be the bridge, the pontifex, who makes it possible to overcome the infinite abyss between God and man.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Responding to the argument that prayer should only offer praise and not ask for concrete things, Benedict XVI is clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\"<em>This would already be foolish, since God could not and should not be bothered with our small things.<\/em>\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reflecting also on the Eucharist, Benedict XVI says that prayer should always lead to it for it is ultimately fulfilled in and through it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A previously unpublished letter written by Pope Benedict XVI on April 27, 2021\u2014just over a year before his death\u2014has come to light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":758,"featured_media":87425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/PADuswvsD_4","video_descarga":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/btestobenedettoeng.mp4","international_url":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/btestobenedettoint.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87424"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87430,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87424\/revisions\/87430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}