Pope Leo XIV urged Christians Wednesday to set aside time in their daily lives to speak with God in prayer and warned about the harm to one’s relationship with him when this is ignored.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime dedicated to prayer, meditation and reflection cannot be lacking in the Christian\u2019s day and week,\u201d the pontiff said during the catechesis at his general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall Jan. 14.<\/p>\n
The pope devoted the second week of his series of teachings on the documents of the Second Vatican Council to a closer examination of the dogmatic constitution \u201cDei Verbum,\u201d dedicated to divine revelation.<\/p>\n
Pointing to the document, he highlighted listening and dialogue with God as foundations of a Christian life.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom this perspective, the first attitude to cultivate is listening, so that the divine Word may penetrate our minds and our hearts; at the same time, we are required to speak with God, not to communicate to him what he already knows, but to reveal ourselves to ourselves,\u201d Leo said.<\/p>\n
The Holy Father also drew on the human experience of friendship to warn about the dangers of neglecting one\u2019s spiritual life: \u201cOur experience tells us that friendships can come to an end through a dramatic gesture of rupture, or because of a series of daily acts of neglect that erode the relationship until it is lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Jesus calls us to be friends, let us not leave this call unheeded. Let us welcome it, let us take care of this relationship, and we will discover that friendship with God is our salvation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The pope insisted that this living relationship with God is cultivated above all through prayer, understood as an authentic friendship with the Lord.<\/p>\n
This experience, he explained, is achieved first of all in liturgical and community prayer, \u201cin which we do not decide what to hear from the Word of God, but it is he himself who speaks to us through the Church.\u201d It is also achieved in personal prayer, which takes place \u201cin the interiority of the heart and mind,\u201d and which should form part of every believer\u2019s day and week.<\/p>\n
\u2018Only when we speak with God can we also speak about him\u2019<\/p>\n
The pontiff stressed that only from a personal relationship with God is it possible to bear authentic witness to the faith: \u201cOnly when we speak with God can we also speak about him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Referring to the dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum, promulgated by St. Pope Paul VI in 1965, Leo emphasized that Christian revelation is grounded in a living and personal dialogue between God and humanity. Through this dialogue, God reveals himself as an ally who invites each person into a true relationship of friendship.<\/p>\n
The pope noted that divine revelation has a profoundly dialogical character, proper to the experience of friendship: it does not tolerate silence, but is nourished by the exchange of true words capable of creating communion.<\/p>\n
Leo XIV also distinguished between \u201cwords\u201d and \u201cchatter,\u201d explaining that the latter remains on the surface and does not create authentic relationships. In genuine relationships, he said, words do not serve merely to exchange information, but to reveal who we are and to establish a deep bond with the other.<\/p>\n
This article was\u00a0originally published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.<\/p>\n