Learning to Pray as Sons and Daughters
SharePope Francis continues his weekly catechesis on the Holy Spirit and the Bride
Learning to pray as sons and daughters, not as slaves
Before the General Audience on Wednesday morning, 6 November [2024], Pope Francis prayed for the victims of the flash floods that struck Valencia and other parts of Spain last week, before a small Marian statue placed on the parvis of Saint Peter's Basilica.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
The sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit, in addition to the Word of God and the Sacraments, is expressed in prayer, and it is to this that we wish to dedicate today's reflection: prayer. The Holy Spirit is both the subject and object of Christian prayer. That is, He is the One who gives prayer and He is the One who is given by prayer. We pray to receive the Holy Spirit, and we receive the Holy Spirit in order to truly pray, that is, as children of God, not as slaves. Let us think a little about this: pray as children of God, not as slaves. One must always pray with freedom. “Today I have to pray for this, this, and this, because I promised this, this and this. Otherwise, I will go to hell”. No, that is not prayer! Prayer is free. You pray when the Spirit helps you to pray. You pray when you feel the need to pray in your heart, and when you do not feel anything, you stop and ask: “Why do I not feel the wish to pray? What is happening in my life?”. But always, spontaneity in prayer is what helps us the most. This is what is meant by praying as children, not as slaves.
First of all, we must pray to receive the Holy Spirit. In this regard, Jesus has a very precise word in the Gospel: “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit* to those who ask him?” (Lk 11:13). Everyone, each one of us, knows how to give good things to little children, whether they may be our children, our grandparents or our friends. The little ones always receive good things from us. And yet, the Father will not give the Spirit to us? And this should give us courage to go forward with this. In the New Testament, we see the Holy Spirit always descend during prayer. He descends upon Jesus in the baptism in the Jordan, while he “was praying” (Lk 3:21), and He descends at Pentecost upon the disciples, while they “devoted themselves with one accord to prayer” (Acts 1:14).
It is the only “power” we have over the Spirit of God. The power of prayer: He does not resist prayer. We pray, and He comes. On Mount Carmel, the false prophets of Baal – remember that passage from the Bible – were agitating to invoke fire from heaven on their sacrifice, but nothing happened, because they were idolators, they worshipped a God that does not exist. Elijah began to pray, and the fire descended and consumed the offering (cf. I Kings 18:20-38). The Church follows this example faithfully: she always as the imploration “Come! Come!” to the Holy Spirit, “Come”, whenever she addresses the Holy Spirit. And she does this especially at Mass, so that He may descend like dew and sanctify the bread and wine for the Eucharistic sacrifice.
But there is another aspect, which is the most important and encouraging for us: the Holy Spirit is He who gives us the true prayer. Saint Paul affirms this: “In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for many times we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will” (cf. Rm 8: 26-27).
It is true, we do not know how to pray, we do not know. We must learn every day. The reason for this weakness of our prayer was expressed in the past in just one word, used in three different ways: as an adjective, as a noun and as an adverb. It is easy to remember, even for those who do not know Latin, and it is worth keeping it in mind, because it contains in itself an entire treatise, these three things. We human beings, according to that saying, “mali, mala, male petimus”, which means, being bad (mali), we ask for the wrong things (mala) and in the wrong way (male). Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom [of God] … and all these things will be given you besides” (Mt 6:33); instead, we seek the extra, namely, our interests – many times – and we completely forget to ask for the kingdom of God. Let us ask the Lord for the kingdom, and everything comes with Him.
Yes, the Holy Spirit comes to aid us in our weakness, but He does something more important still: He testifies to us that we are children of God and puts on our lips the cry: “Abba! Father!” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). We cannot say “Father, Abba”. We cannot say “Father” without the strength of the Holy Spirit. Christian prayer is not man at one end of the telephone, speaking to God on the other; no, it is God who prays in us! We pray to God through God. Praying means placing oneself inside God, so that God enters into us.
It is precisely in prayer that the Holy Spirit is revealed as the “Paraclete”, that is, advocate and defender. He does not accuse us before the Father, but defends us. Yes, He defends us, He convinces us of the fact that we are sinners (cf. Jn 16:8), but He does so in order to make us able to savour the joy of the Father’s mercy, not to destroy us with fruitless feelings of guilt. Even when our heart reproaches us for something, He reminds us that “God is greater than our hearts” (1 Jn 3:20). God is greater than our sin. We are all sinners, but think: perhaps some of you – I don’t know – are very afraid because of the things they have done, afraid of being reproached by God, afraid of many things and unable to find peace. Pray, call to the Holy Spirit, and He will teach you how to ask for forgiveness. And do you know something? God does not know much grammar, and when we ask for forgiveness, He does not let us finish! “For…” and there, He does not let us finish the word forgiveness. He forgives us first, He always forgives, and He is always beside us to forgive us, before we complete the word forgiveness. We say “For…” and the Father always forgives us.
The Holy Spirit intercedes and He also teaches us how to intercede, in turn, for our brothers and sisters – He intercedes for us and teaches us how to intercede for others. He teaches us the prayer of intercession: praying for this person, praying for that sick person, for the one who is in prison, praying… even praying for one’s mother in law! And pray, always. Always. This prayer is particularly pleasing to God, because it is the most gratuitous and altruistic. When someone prays for everyone, it happens – as Saint Ambrose used to say – that everyone prays for someone; prayer multiplies. [1] This is how prayer is. This is a task that is so precious and necessary in the Church, particularly during this time of preparation for the Jubilee: to unite ourselves to the Paraclete who “intercedes for all of us according to God's plans”. But do not pray like parrots, please! Do not say, “Blah, blah, blah…”. No. Say “Lord”, but say it with your heart. “Help me, Lord”, “I love you, Lord”. And when you pray the Lord’s Prayer, pray “Father, You are my Father”. Pray with the heart, not the lips; don’t be like parrots.
May the Holy Spirit help us in prayer, which we need so much. Thank you.
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[1] De Cain et Abel, I, 39.
