Accessibility Tools

Return to POPE FRANCIS

POPE FRANCIS: “THE NEW AND MOST POWERFUL PRAYER”

Pope at Mass: true prayer takes us out of ourselves

              2013-05-11 Vatican Radio (Vatican Radio) True prayer brings us out of ourselves: it opens us to the Father and to the neediest of our brothers and sisters. This was a central part of Pope Francis’ message to the faithful gathered for Mass on Saturday morning in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae residence at the Vatican, with agents of the Vatican Gendarmerie and a group of Argentine journalists with their families in attendance. The Pope’s homily focused on the day’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus says, “[I]f you ask the Father any thing in my name, he will give it you.” Discussing Jesus’ words, Pope Francis said, “There’s something new here, something that changes: it is a novelty in prayer. The Father will give us everything, but always in the name of Jesus.” The Lord ascends to the Father, enters “the heavenly Sanctuary,” opens doors and leaves them open because “He Himself is the door,” and “intercedes for us,” as priest, even, “until the end of the world”: He prays for us before the Father. I always liked that. Jesus, in His resurrection, had a beautiful body: the cuts of the scourging and the crown of thorns are gone, all of them. His bruises from the beatings are healed and gone. But He wanted always to keep His wounds [in His hands, His feet and His side], for those wounds are precisely His prayer of intercession to the Father. [It is as if Jesus were saying,] ‘But … look,’ … this person is asking you this thing in My name, look.’ This is the novelty that Jesus announces to us. He tells us this new thing: to trust in His passion, to trust in His victory over death, to trust in His wounds. He is the priest and this is the sacrifice: his wounds – and this gives us confidence, gives us courage to pray.” The Pope noted the many times that we get bored in prayer, adding that prayer is not asking for this or that, but it is “the intercession of Jesus, who before the Father bares His wounds for the Father to see: “Prayer to the Father in the name of Jesus brings us out of ourselves. The prayer that bores us is always within ourselves, as a thought that comes and goes. But true prayer is the turning out of ourselves [and] to the Father in the name of Jesus: [true prayer] is an exodus from ourselves.” Pope Francis goes on to ask how we can “recognize the wounds of Jesus in heaven,” and, “where the school is,” at which one learns to recognize the wounds of Jesus, these wounds of priestly intercession? Pope Francs said that there there is another exodus out of ourselves, and toward the wounds of our brothers, our brothers and our sisters in need: “If we are not able to move out of ourselves and toward our brother in need, to the sick, the ignorant, the poor, the exploited – if we are not able to accomplish this exodus from ourselves, and towards those wounds, we shall never learn that freedom, which carries us through that other exodus from ourselves, and toward the wounds of Jesus. There are two exits from ourselves: one to the wounds of Jesus, the other to the wounds of our brothers and sisters. And this is the way that Jesus wants [there to be] in our prayer.” “This,” concluded Pope Francis, “is the new way to pray: with the confidence, the courage that allows us to know that Jesus is before the Father, showing the Father His wounds, but also with the humility of those who go to learn to recognize, to find the wounds of Jesus in his needy brothers and sisters,” who, “carry the cross and still have not won, as Jesus has.”

 

Book Of Heaven

 

Our Lord Jesus to The Servant of God, Luisa Piccarreta, The Little Daughter of the Divine Will

 

Volume 11  

June 15, 1916


In the Divine Will everything is complete. The most powerful prayers over the Heart of Jesus, and those which move Him the most, are to clothe oneself with all that He Himself did and suffered.

Continuing in my usual state, my always lovable Jesus came, He transformed me completely in Him, and then He told me: “Daughter, pour yourself into my Will to make complete reparations for Me. My love feels an irresistible need for them; after so many offenses of creatures, it wants one at least who, placing herself between Me and them, would give Me complete reparations, love for all, and would snatch from Me graces for all. But you can do this only in my Will, in which you will find Me and all creatures. Oh, with what yearnings am I waiting for you to enter into my Will, to be able to find in you the satisfactions and the reparations of all! Only in my Will will you find all things in act, because I am engine, actor and spectator of everything.” Now, while He was saying this, I poured myself into His Will – but who can say what I saw? I was in contact with every thought of creature, the life of which came from God; and I, in His Will, multiplied myself in each thought, and with the sanctity of His Will I repaired everything, I had a ‘Thank You’ for all, a love for all. Then I multiplied myself in the gazes, in the words and in everything else – but who can say what was happening? I lack the terms, and maybe the very angelic tongues would stammer; therefore I stop here.

So I spent the whole night with Jesus in His Will. Then I felt the Queen Mama near me, and She told me: “My daughter, pray.” And I: ‘My Mama, let us pray together, for by myself I don’t know how to pray.’ And She added: “The most powerful prayers over the Heart of my Son, and those which move Him the most, are for the creature to clothe herself with everything He Himself did and suffered, since He gave everything as gift to the creature. Therefore, my daughter, surround your head with the thorns of Jesus, bead your eyes with His tears, impregnate your tongue with His bitterness, clothe your soul with His Blood, adorn yourself with His wounds, pierce your hands and feet with His nails, and like another Christ present yourself before His Divine Majesty. This sight will move Him in such a way that He will not be able to deny anything to the soul who is clothed with His own insignia. But – oh, how little do creatures know how to make use of the gifts which my Son gave them! These were my prayers upon earth, and these are my prayers in Heaven.” So, together we clothed ourselves with the insignia of Jesus, and together we presented ourselves before the Divine Throne. This moved all; the Angels made way for us and remained as though surprised. I thanked Mama, and I found myself inside myself.

 

 

Permanent link to this article: https://luisapiccarreta.com/other-category/the-papacy/pope-francis-and-mary-our-blessed-mother/pope-francis-the-new-and-most-powerful-prayer/