In the general audience, the pontiff made a new call to prayer, after the missile attack that caused deaths and damage to many civilian infrastructure. In his catechism, Francis spoke of the desolation in the spiritual life, which shakes that “aseptic serenity that makes us inhuman.” Restlessness as “answer to the objection that the experience of God is a mere projection of our desires.”
Vatican City () – “Hurry up Lord”. It is the prayer with which Pope Francis invited to pray today, at the end of the General Audience on Wednesday, to ask for the “tormented Ukraine” that is suffering a new rain of Russian missiles on civilian targets.
“It is with pain and concern that I have learned of the news of a new and even stronger missile attack against Ukraine, which has caused deaths and damage to many civilian infrastructures,” the pontiff said, without referring directly to the two deaths in the territory. “Let us pray that the Lord converts the hearts of those who still aim at war and make the desire for peace prevail for the martyred Ukraine, to avoid any escalation and open the way to ceasefire and dialogue.” “May the Lord give the Ukrainians comfort and strength in this trial and give them a hope of peace,” he added. In his prayer, he also remembered “the innocent victims of the terrorist attack that occurred a few days ago in Istanbul.”
Earlier, in his catechesis, Francis resumed the cycle of reflections on the theme of discernment, and stopped at desolation, a feeling that is not alien to spiritual life. “Even this state – Pope Francis explained – can be an opportunity for growth. In fact, if there is not a bit of dissatisfaction, a healthy sadness, a healthy ability to be alone, to be with ourselves without running away, we run the risk of risk of always remaining on the surface of things and never making contact with the center of our existence”.
Desolation “shakes the soul”, and this is indispensable in the spiritual life because “perfect but aseptic serenity, when it becomes the criterion of choices and behavior, makes us inhuman, indifferent to the suffering of others and incapable of accept ours.” “Perfect serenity” cannot be achieved by following the path of indifference”. In this sense, the Pope recalled great figures of saints such as Augustine of Hippo, Edith Stein, José Benedicto Cottolengo and Carlos de Foucauld, who found precisely in their own restlessness “a decisive impulse to turn their lives around”.
Desolation is also a free school. “Being desolate – observed the pontiff – offers us the possibility of growing, of beginning a more mature, more beautiful relationship with the Lord and with loved ones, a relationship that is not reduced to a mere exchange of giving and receiving. It is a way of learning to be with the Lord, because “spiritual life is not a technique at our disposal, it is not an interior ‘well-being’ program that we have to plan. No. It is a relationship with the Living, which cannot be reduced to our categories.”
In this perspective, desolation becomes “the clearest response to the objection that the experience of God is a mere projection of our desires.” Instead, those who pray realize that the results are unpredictable: the experiences and passages of the Bible that used to move us, today, strangely, no longer transport us. And just as unexpectedly, experiences, encounters, and readings that have never been paid attention to or were preferred to avoid—such as the experience of the cross—bring an unexpected peace.”
“Let us never be discouraged by difficulties -Francis concluded-; on the contrary, let us face the test with determination, with the help of the grace of God that never fails us. And if we hear within us an insistent voice that wants to separate us from praying Let us learn to unmask it as the voice of the tempter; and let us not be impressed: simply do the opposite of what it tells us.”
