By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — With
his visit to World Youth Day only a few days away, Pope Francis asked young pilgrims
to accompany his visit to
Krakow, Poland, with prayers.
Leaving for Poland July 27 “to
meet up with these young men and women and celebrate with them and for them the
Jubilee of Mercy, with the intercession of St. John Paul II, I ask you to accompany me with prayer,” the pope said
July 25 during his Angelus
address.
The pope thanked the volunteers,
bishops, priests and men and women religious “who are working to welcome
these young pilgrims.”
In a message for youths unable
to make it to the event,
he said, “A special word to the many youth of their same age who,
unable to be present personally, will follow the event through the media: We
are all united in prayer!”
Prayer was the main theme of
the pope’s reflection prior to reciting the Angelus with thousands of visitors in St. Peter’s Square.
Recalling the day’s Gospel
reading, in which Jesus teaches his disciples the Lord’s prayer, the pope said
the word ‘father’ is the secret to Jesus’ prayer.
That word, the pope said,
“is the key that he himself gives us so that we can also enter into this
relationship of trusting dialogue with the father who has accompanied and
sustained his life.”
Pope Francis explained that
prayer is the primary “work tool in our hands” and that to insist on
something with God is not meant to “convince him, but rather to strengthen
our faith and our patience, that is, our capacity to fight beside God for the
things that are truly important and necessary.”
“In prayer we are a
pair: God and me, fighting together for what is important. Among these, there
is one, the great important thing, which Jesus tells us today in the Gospel, but
which we hardly ever consider, and it is the Holy Spirit: ‘Grant to me the Holy
Spirit!'” he said.
In asking for the Holy
Spirit, he concluded, Christians can live their lives with “wisdom, with
love, doing the will
of God,” like Mary.
“The Virgin Mary shows
us this with her existence, wholly animated by the Spirit of God. She helps us
to pray to the father united to Jesus, so as to live not in a worldly way, but
in accordance with the Gospel, guided by the Holy Spirit,” the pope said.
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Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju.
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