During the Angelus prayer on Sunday, January 9, Pope Francis dressed the value of prayer, recalling the Baptism in the Jordan River and the beginning of Our Lord’s public life.
Newsroom (09/11/2021 2:18 PM, Gaudium Press) Pope Francis began the traditional Angelus on Sunday, January 9, recalling the Baptism in the Jordan River and the beginning of Our Lord’s public life. He commented on a passage from St. Luke (3:21) and noted how Jesus was in prayer during his Baptism. “He, the Lord, the Son of God, prays like us? Yes, Jesus – the Gospels repeat this many times – spends a lot of time in prayer: at the beginning of every day, often at night, before making important decisions,” he explained.
Don’t get submerged in life’s difficulties
The Pope applied the example to everyday life: “He descends towards us into the waters of the Jordan; on the other, he raises his eyes and his heart, praying to the Father. It is a tremendous lesson for us: we are all immersed in the problems of life and, in many complicated situations, called upon to face difficult moments and choices that get us down. But, if we do not want to be crushed, we need to raise everything upwards.”
Indeed, it is thanks to prayer that we achieve this -the Pontiff noted, because “prayer is the way we allow God to act in us, to understand what he wants to communicate to us even in the most difficult situations, prayer is having the strength to go forward.”
Prayer opens the gates of heaven
The Pope went on to commend prayer:“Prayer opens the heavens: it gives life oxygen, a breath of fresh air amidst life’s troubles and (…) it makes us feel like beloved children of the Father.”
Francis recalled that “being God’s children began on the day of our Baptism, which immersed us in Christ and, as members of the people of God, we became beloved children of the Father. Let us not forget the date of our Baptism! (…) because it is our rebirth, the moment in which we became children of God with Jesus!”
An Examination of conscience on prayer
Francis concluded his words before the Angelus by proposing to the crowd some questions about the life of prayer: “today, at this moment, let us ask ourselves: how is my prayer going? Do I pray out of habit, do I pray unwillingly, just reciting formulas, or is my prayer an encounter with God? I, a sinner, always with the people of God, never isolated? Do I cultivate intimacy with God, dialogue with Him, listen to his Word?“
With information from Vatican News.
Compiled by Gustavo Kralj
