Lisbon, 02 August, 2023 / 8:06 pm (ACI Africa).
From Lisbon, Portugal, Pope Francis on Wednesday reflected on the urgency of taking up again “the prayer of adoration” before the tabernacle to recover “the taste and passion for evangelization” in a message addressed to bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated women religious, and seminarians.
“I would like to ask a question here, but each one should answer it interiorly. How do I pray? Like a parrot — blah blah blah blah blah? Or taking a nap in front of the tabernacle because I don’t know how to talk to the Lord? I pray? How do I pray? Only in adoration, only before the Lord can the taste and passion for evangelization be recovered,” the pontiff said during his Aug. 2 homily for vespers at the Jerónimos Monastery.
After noting that “to trust every day in the Lord and in his word, words are not enough” but rather “a lot of prayer is needed,” he pointed out to the approximately 1,100 attendees that the Church has abandoned prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
“Curiously, the prayer of adoration — we have lost it. We have lost it, and everyone — priests, bishops, consecrated men and women, laypeople — have to recover it. It’s to be in silence, before the Lord,” Francis urged.
In this context, the pope invited his listeners to follow the example of St. Teresa of Calcutta, who, despite being “involved in so many things in life, never gave up adoration even at times when her faith wavered and she wondered if it was all true or not.”