Everyone can pray, have relationship with God, pope says at audience

Everyone is given the grace to pray, which is the only way to have a life-giving relationship with God, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Resuming his weekly general audiences after a monthlong break, Pope Benedict continued his series of talks on prayer Aug. 1.

The audience, which lasted less than half an hour, was held in Castel Gandolfo’s main square, just outside the entrance to the papal summer villa. The Vatican said the estimated 2,000 pilgrims and visitors could not all fit inside the courtyard of the villa.

Marking the feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists and patron of moral theologians and confessors, the pope said the saint lived in “a period of great rigorism,” but encouraged priests to administer the sacrament in a way that communicated “the joyful embrace of God the merciful father, who in his infinite mercy never tires of welcoming back his repentant sons.”

Looking at St. Alphonsus’ tract “The Necessity and Power of Prayer,” the pope said human life often is marked by temptations and weakness, but even the simplest prayer to God can give a person the power to resist evil and do good. [more]

SOURCE

CNS