Pope Francis: There is no ‘I’ in the ‘Our Father’

February 13, 2019 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

Vatican City, Feb 13, 2019 / 03:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis said Wednesday that one’s prayer should always be a dialogue with God with charitable consideration for others’ needs.

“There is no room for individualism in dialogue with God,” Pope Francis said Feb. 13, noting that there is no “I” in the words of the “Our Father” prayer.

One’s prayer should not contain an “ostentation of one's problems as if we were the only ones in the world to suffer,” the pope advised.

“In prayer, a Christian brings all the difficulties of the people who live next to him: when the evening descends, he tells God about the pains he has encountered on that day, putting before Him many faces, friends and even enemies,” he said.

In a continuation of his weekly catechesis on the “Our Father,” Pope Francis focused on the prayer’s repeated use of the words “you” and “us,” rather than an individualistic “I” in his Wednesday general audience.

“Jesus teaches us to pray, having first of all 'You' on our lips because Christian prayer is dialogue: ‘hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done,’” he said. It is about “you” and then “we,” a community of brothers and sisters.

“If one does not realize that there are many people around him who are suffering, if he does not pity for the tears of the poor, if he is addicted to everything, then it means that his heart is of stone,” he said.

“In this case it is good to beg the Lord to touch us with his Spirit and to soften our heart,” he continued.

The pope warned Catholics not be hypocrites seeking attention through prayer, but to follow Christ’s instructions to pray in “the silence of your room” where one can “withdraw from the world, and turn to God calling him ‘Father!’”

Prayer “at its root, is a silent dialogue, like the crossing of glances between two people who love each other: man and God,” he explained.

Pope Francis said that “there are men who apparently do not seek God, but Jesus makes us pray for them too, because God seeks these people above all.”

“Saints and sinners, we are all brothers loved by the same Father,” Pope Francis said.

If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

Related Articles

No Picture
News Briefs

Women of Catholic Worker Movement on prayerful pilgrimage for abuse summit

February 22, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Rome, Italy, Feb 22, 2019 / 05:02 am (CNA).- American women from the Catholic Worker Movement are in Rome this week to pray for the Vatican’s sexual abuse summit in emulation of Dorothy Day’s Roman pilgrimage to fast and pray for peace.

“We’ve all been very deeply grieved by the sex abuse crisis, and the crisis it has created for the entire Church,” Catholic Worker Movement leader Johanna Berrigan told CNA Feb. 21.

“It just dawned on us that this would be an important time to be in Rome, to bear witness to the suffering Church that we care deeply about and … we wanted to address ways for reform,” she said.

Through her involvement in the Catholic Worker Movement, a group dedicated to aiding and advocating for the poor, Berrigan co-founded the Catholic Worker Free Clinic for homeless and uninsured adults in Philadelphia in 1991 and opened another medical clinic in Haiti in 2005.

Berrigan, along with six other women, decided in November that they wanted to be in Rome as the summit was happening to pray and to give a voice to women, mothers, and lay people in the Vatican’s discussion of the issue.

“When we first heard about it, it was strictly bishops that were invited, we have since learned that there has been some lay involvement,” Berrigan explained.

Three of the nine official speakers at the Vatican sex abuse summit Feb. 21 – 24 are women, one of whom is a religious sister from Nigeria, Sister Veronica Openibo.

On the first day of the summit, the women were invited for a surprise visit to the US Embassy to the Holy See, where they met with Ambassador Callista Gingrich to discuss their perspective on the sex abuse crisis.

The seven Catholic Worker Movement women on pilgrimage meet each day to decide which historic churches they should visit to pray for the summit.

“We have an example in Dorothy Day, our foundress, who came to Rome in another significant point in the Church’s history and she and a delegation of women came on pilgrimage to fast and pray for the Church to recognize ‘conscientious objection,’ and really calling for an end to nuclear weapons. So we have that in our history,” Berrigan said.

Dorothy Day, whose cause for canonization has been opened, founded the Catholic Worker Movement with Peter Maurin in 1933, starting soup kitchens, farm communities, and a Catholic newspaper. She dedicated her life to aiding and advocating for the poor and leading a life characterized by voluntary poverty and works of mercy.

During their time in Rome, the Catholic Worker Movement women attended a sex abuse survivors’ vigil sponsored by Ending Clergy Abuse Feb. 21 in solidarity with victims.

At the vigil, the women called for justice for survivors and an end to clericalism, as well as truth, reconciliation and healing for the entire Church.

“We care deeply about this Church, we are very, very grateful that Pope Francis has called this summit. It seems to be a step forward,” Berrigan said.

“The world is watching … people of all faiths are watching to see what the outcome of [this summit] is going to be,” she said.

[…]

1 Trackback / Pingback

  1. Pope Francis: There is no ‘I’ in the ‘Our Father’ -

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*