February 14, 2024
How can we prepare for an extraordinary year of celebration, that of the Great Jubilee of 2025? Through an extraordinary year of prayer, declared Pope Francis. Opening the "Year of Prayer" on January 21, the Holy Father made it clear: there will be no major organized events, but this year we will learn to pray. What a wonderful program for the Christian life, especially during Lent!
As we all know, there are different ways of praying: the rosary, praise, prayers of petition... but there's also a hidden treasure: silent prayer, heart-to-heart with God. "Go into your room, shut the door and pray to your Father, who is present in secret". Contrary to popular belief, prayer is not just for nuns! Every baptized person is called to it. The aridity and silence of the desert can frighten us, strip us, bore us... Little Thérèse wrote that she fell asleep almost every time! And yet, day after day, God dug something very precious into her heart: the thirst to love. And he made her prayer infinitely fruitful. Discovering a living personal bond with God is well worth walking 40 days in the desert of silent prayer, letting ourselves be "tanned by God's sun", as the young Carlo Acutis used to say, that is, letting ourselves be loved and pacified.
Is there such a thing as a "Practical Guide to Perfect Prayer"? No... perhaps because God is the last one to worry about our poverty, since He wants our hearts above all. No "method", but little paths, the most radical of which is undoubtedly the act of adoration. This is how God formed his people for 40 years in the desert: to recognize that everything comes from him, that he loves us personally, that he has saved us and that we are in his hand from which no one will snatch us...
"Your Father sees what you do in secret, and he will repay you. What if the desert of our Lent 2024 began to blossom thanks to silent prayer?
