Reading 1 Ex 17:8-13 In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel. Moses, therefore, said to Joshua, "Pick out certain men, and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle. I will be standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand." So Joshua did as Moses told him: he engaged Amalek in battle after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur. As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight. Moses'hands, however, grew tired; so they put a rock in place for him to sit on. Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset. And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 R.(cf. 2) Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. I lift up my eyes toward the mountains; whence shall help come to me? My help is from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. May he not suffer your foot to slip; may he slumber not who guards you: indeed he neither slumbers nor sleeps, the guardian of Israel. R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade; he is beside you at your right hand. The sun shall not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. The LORD will guard you from all evil; he will guard your life. The LORD will guard your coming and your going, both now and forever. R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Reading 2 2 Tm 3:14-4:2 Beloved: Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it, and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching. Alleluia Heb 4:12 R. Alleluia, alleluia. The word of God is living and effective, discerning reflections and thoughts of the heart. R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel Lk 18:1-8 Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, "There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, 'Render a just decision for me against my adversary.' For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, 'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.'" The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
FAUSTI - You must always pray, because every moment is that of His coming. Salvation happens in this our profane time, in which we eat, we drink, etc. for this reason Paul says "whether you eat, whether you drink, or do anything else, do everything for the glory of God" The final decision is anticipated in history. The final destiny is built now. There is no time other than this present. The past is no longer, the future is not yet. One can always pray, because prayer does not lay upon any other action. It enlightens them all and directs them to their aim. The heart can and must always be intent to God and present to Him, because it is made for Him. The action that is not born from prayer is as an arrow shot at random by a loose bow. Without purpose and without strength, it cannot reach its target. Prayer is important because it is desire for God. And the desire of God is the greatest gift that has been given to us. No action can produce or reach the One who cannot escape from the desire. God, being Love, desires nothing more than being desired. But the emptiness is immediately filled with the ghosts and fears of the heart, which often make a wall between us and God. Our sin, absence and distance from Him, is more evident in prayer than elsewhere. While normally we fight with flies and mosquitoes, when we pray we fight with lions and dragons, or rather, with God Himself, on whom we project our wickedness. That is why prayer is a struggle. It keeps alive in the night the expectation of light. It is the desire for the return of the Lord, necessary to the believer as water to fish. But He seems insensitive even to the most annoying insistence; He seems to yield only with difficulty and not to be disturbed beyond, as the unjust judge. In reality, the Lord acts as a deaf person, only because He wishes that we cry out to Him, He wishes to hear our voice: "Let me hear your voice, because your voice is sweet", says the Bridegroom to the woman who feels herself widowed (Ct 2:14). The widow has no gifts. She is poor, like the desire. She can only count on insistence and intensity, which dig her even deeper. But it is precisely in this way that she becomes capable of welcoming the desired One. If His coming is certain, in the meantime we must "importune Him". Faith consists in this: an insistent request for His return, which keeps our desire for Him awake and preserves us from falling into the radical temptation of no longer waiting for Him. Salvation does not come because it is not invoked. The Savior is delayed in coming only because He is not desired. He wants that we raise our eyes from what His hand offers to us, to His sight that wants to meet us. For this we must pray without feeling tired. The prayer must be continuous. Its purpose is not to change God in our regard, but to change us in His regard, making us pass from the interested desire of His gifts that do not come, to the pure desire of Him who wants to come. Only in this way can we welcome Him. For this reason, the infallible fruit of persevering prayer is not His gifts, but He Himself as a Gift: the Holy Spirit. The Lord Himself orders us to disturb Him, seeking, knocking. But He does not listen to each of us except for what is necessary because we do not stop bothering Him. The long silence of God fills up at the end of His Word, so different from all our other words. The Kingdom, already present among us, will be seen only by those who have a pure heart (Mt 5:8). For this reason, every chat must first be extinguished before His Silence. When He comes, the widowhood ceases, which, more than of the bride, is of the Bridegroom. For not He has left us, but we have left Him. He who will come at the end in His Glory, already comes now every day, in patience towards us (2Pt 3,8s).
BENEDICT XVI 21 October 2007 ...Today the main theme of the Word of God is prayer; indeed, we "ought always to pray and not lose heart", as the Gospel says. ...I would sum it up like this: the power that changes the world and transforms it into the Kingdom of God, in silence and without fanfare, is faith - and prayer is the expression of faith. When faith is filled with love for God, recognized as a good and just Father, prayer becomes persevering, insistent, it becomes a groan of the spirit, a cry of the soul that penetrates God's Heart. Thus, prayer becomes the greatest transforming power in the world. In the face of a difficult and complex social reality, as yours certainly is, it is essential to strengthen hope which is based on faith and expressed in unflagging prayer. It is prayer that keeps the torch of faith alight. Jesus asks, as we heard at the end of the Gospel: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Lk 18: 8). It is a question that makes us think. What will be our answer to this disturbing question? Today, let us repeat together with humble courage: Lord, in coming among us at this Sunday celebration you find us gathered together with the lamp of faith lit. We believe and trust in you! Increase our faith! The biblical Readings we have heard present several models to inspire us in our profession of faith, which is also always a profession of hope because faith and hope open the earth to divine power, to the power for good. They are the figures of the widow, whom we encounter in the Gospel parable, and of Moses, of whom the Book of Exodus speaks. The widow of the Gospel (Lk 18: 1-8) makes us think of the "little", the lowliest, but also of so many simple, upright people who suffer because of abuse, who feel powerless in the face of the perduring social malaise and are tempted to despair. To them Jesus repeats: look at this poor widow, with what tenacity does she insist and in the end succeeds in being heard by a dishonest judge! How could you imagine that your Heavenly Father, who is good and faithful and powerful, who desires only his children's good, would not do justice to you in his own time? Faith assures us that God hears our prayers and grants them at the appropriate moment, although our daily experience seems to deny this certainty. In fact, in the face of certain events in the news or of life's numerous daily hardships which the press does not even mention, the supplication of the ancient Prophet: "O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you, "Violence!' and you will not save?" (Heb 1: 2) wells up in the heart spontaneously. There is one answer to this heartfelt invocation: God cannot change things without our conversion, and our true conversion begins with the "cry" of the soul imploring forgiveness and salvation. Christian prayer is not, therefore, an expression of fatalism or inertia; on the contrary, it is the opposite of evasion from reality, from consoling intimism. It is the force of hope, the maximum expression of faith in the power of God who is Love and does not abandon us. The prayer Jesus taught us which culminated in Gethsemane has the character of "competitiveness", that is, of a struggle because we line up with determination at the Lord's side to fight injustice and conquer evil with good; it is the weapon of the lowly and the poor in spirit, who reject every type of violence. Indeed, they respond to it with evangelical non-violence, thereby testifying that the truth of Love is stronger than hatred and death.
-->This also emerges in the First Reading, the famous account of the battle between the Israelites and Amalek's men ( Ex 17: 8-13a). It was precisely prayer, addressed with faith to the true God, that determined the fate of that harsh conflict. While Joshua and his men were tackling their adversaries on the battlefield, Moses was standing on the hilltop, his hands uplifted in the position of a person praying. These raised hands of the great leader guaranteed Israel's victory. God was with his people; he wanted them to win but made Moses' uplifted hands the condition for his intervention. It seems incredible, but that is how it is: God needs the raised hands of his servant! Moses' raised arms are reminiscent of the arms of Jesus on the Cross: the outspread, nailed arms with which the Redeemer won the crucial battle against the infernal enemy. His fight, his arms raised to the Father and wide open for the world, ask for other arms, other hearts that continue to offer themselves with his same love until the end of the world.
At the start of today’s celebration, we addressed this prayer to the Lord: “Create in us a generous and steadfast heart, so that we may always serve you with fidelity and purity of spirit” (Collect).
By our own efforts, we cannot give ourselves such a heart. Only God can do this, and so in the prayer we ask him to give it to us as his “creation”. In this way, we come to the theme of prayer, which is central to this Sunday’s scriptural readings and challenges all of us who are gathered here for the canonization of new Saints. The Saints attained the goal. Thanks to prayer, they had a generous and steadfast heart. They prayed mightily; they fought and they were victorious.
So pray! Like Moses, who was above all a man of God, a man of prayer. We see him today in the battle against Amalek, standing atop the hill with his arms raised. From time to time, however, his arms would grow weary and fall, and then the tide would turn against the people. So Aaron and Hur made Moses sit on a stone and they held up his arms, until the final victory was won.
This is the kind of spiritual life the Church asks of us: not to win by war, but to win with peace!
There is an important message in this story of Moses: commitment to prayer demands that we support one another. Weariness is inevitable. Sometimes we simply cannot go on, yet, with the support of our brothers and sisters, our prayer can persevere until the Lord completes his work.
Saint Paul writes to Timothy, his disciple and co-worker, and urges him to hold fast to what he has learned and believed (cf. 2 Tim 3:14). But Timothy could not do this by his own efforts: the “battle” of perseverance cannot be won without prayer. Not sporadic or hesitant prayer, but prayer offered as Jesus tells us in the Gospel: “Pray always, without ever losing heart” (Lk 18:1). This is the Christian way of life: remaining steadfast in prayer, in order to remain steadfast in faith and testimony. Here once again we may hear a voice within us, saying: “But Lord, how can we not grow weary? We are human… even Moses grew weary...!” True, each of us grows weary. Yet we are not alone; we are part of a Body! We are members of the Body of Christ, the Church, whose arms are raised day and night to heaven, thanks to the presence of the Risen Christ and his Holy Spirit. Only in the Church, and thanks to the Church’s prayer, are we able to remain steadfast in faith and witness.
We have heard the promise Jesus makes in the Gospel: “God will grant justice to his chosen ones, who cry to him day and night” (cf. Lk 18:7). This is the mystery of prayer: to keep crying out, not to lose heart, and if we should grow tired, asking help to keep our hands raised. This is the prayer that Jesus has revealed to us and given us in the Holy Spirit. To pray is not to take refuge in an ideal world, nor to escape into a false, selfish sense of calm. On the contrary, to pray is to struggle, but also to let the Holy Spirit pray within us. For the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray. He guides us in prayer and he enables us to pray as sons and daughters.
The saints are men and women who enter fully into the mystery of prayer. Men and women who struggle with prayer, letting the Holy Spirit pray and struggle in them. They struggle to the very end, with all their strength, and they triumph, but not by their own efforts: the Lord triumphs in them and with them. The seven witnesses who were canonized today also fought the good fight of faith and love by their prayers. That is why they remained firm in faith, with a generous and steadfast heart. Through their example and their intercession, may God also enable us to be men and women of prayer. May we cry out day and night to God, without losing heart. May we let the Holy Spirit pray in us, and may we support one another in prayer, in order to keep our arms raised, until Divine Mercy wins the victory.
Reading 1
RispondiEliminaEx 17:8-13
In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel.
Moses, therefore, said to Joshua,
"Pick out certain men,
and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle.
I will be standing on top of the hill
with the staff of God in my hand."
So Joshua did as Moses told him:
he engaged Amalek in battle
after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.
As long as Moses kept his hands raised up,
Israel had the better of the fight,
but when he let his hands rest,
Amalek had the better of the fight.
Moses'hands, however, grew tired;
so they put a rock in place for him to sit on.
Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands,
one on one side and one on the other,
so that his hands remained steady till sunset.
And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people
with the edge of the sword.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
R.(cf. 2) Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
I lift up my eyes toward the mountains;
whence shall help come to me?
My help is from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
May he not suffer your foot to slip;
may he slumber not who guards you:
indeed he neither slumbers nor sleeps,
the guardian of Israel.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade;
he is beside you at your right hand.
The sun shall not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The LORD will guard you from all evil;
he will guard your life.
The LORD will guard your coming and your going,
both now and forever.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Reading 2
2 Tm 3:14-4:2
Beloved:
Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed,
because you know from whom you learned it,
and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures,
which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation
through faith in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is inspired by God
and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus,
who will judge the living and the dead,
and by his appearing and his kingly power:
proclaim the word;
be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient;
convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.
Alleluia
Heb 4:12
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The word of God is living and effective,
discerning reflections and thoughts of the heart.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Lk 18:1-8
Jesus told his disciples a parable
about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.
He said, "There was a judge in a certain town
who neither feared God nor respected any human being.
And a widow in that town used to come to him and say,
'Render a just decision for me against my adversary.'
For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,
'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being,
because this widow keeps bothering me
I shall deliver a just decision for her
lest she finally come and strike me.'"
The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them?
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.
But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
FAUSTI - You must always pray, because every moment is that of His coming. Salvation happens in this our profane time, in which we eat, we drink, etc. for this reason Paul says "whether you eat, whether you drink, or do anything else, do everything for the glory of God" The final decision is anticipated in history. The final destiny is built now. There is no time other than this present.
RispondiEliminaThe past is no longer, the future is not yet.
One can always pray, because prayer does not lay upon any other action. It enlightens them all and directs them to their aim. The heart can and must always be intent to God and present to Him, because it is made for Him.
The action that is not born from prayer is as an arrow shot at random by a loose bow. Without purpose and without strength, it cannot reach its target.
Prayer is important because it is desire for God. And the desire of God is the greatest gift that has been given to us.
No action can produce or reach the One who cannot escape from the desire. God, being Love, desires nothing more than being desired.
But the emptiness is immediately filled with the ghosts and fears of the heart, which often make a wall between us and God.
Our sin, absence and distance from Him, is more evident in prayer than elsewhere.
While normally we fight with flies and mosquitoes, when we pray we fight with lions and dragons, or rather, with God Himself, on whom we project our wickedness.
That is why prayer is a struggle.
It keeps alive in the night the expectation of light. It is the desire for the return of the Lord, necessary to the believer as water to fish.
But He seems insensitive even to the most annoying insistence; He seems to yield only with difficulty and not to be disturbed beyond, as the unjust judge.
In reality, the Lord acts as a deaf person, only because He wishes that we cry out to Him, He wishes to hear our voice: "Let me hear your voice, because your voice is sweet", says the Bridegroom to the woman who feels herself widowed (Ct 2:14).
The widow has no gifts.
She is poor, like the desire.
She can only count on insistence and intensity, which dig her even deeper. But it is precisely in this way that she becomes capable of welcoming the desired One.
If His coming is certain, in the meantime we must "importune Him".
Faith consists in this: an insistent request for His return, which keeps our desire for Him awake and preserves us from falling into the radical temptation of no longer waiting for Him.
Salvation does not come because it is not invoked.
The Savior is delayed in coming only because He is not desired.
He wants that we raise our eyes from what His hand offers to us, to His sight that wants to meet us.
For this we must pray without feeling tired.
The prayer must be continuous.
Its purpose is not to change God in our regard, but to change us in His regard, making us pass from the interested desire of His gifts that do not come, to the pure desire of Him who wants to come.
Only in this way can we welcome Him.
For this reason, the infallible fruit of persevering prayer is not His gifts, but He Himself as a Gift: the Holy Spirit.
The Lord Himself orders us to disturb Him, seeking, knocking.
But He does not listen to each of us except for what is necessary because we do not stop bothering Him.
The long silence of God fills up at the end of His Word, so different from all our other words.
The Kingdom, already present among us, will be seen only by those who have a pure heart (Mt 5:8).
For this reason, every chat must first be extinguished before His Silence.
When He comes, the widowhood ceases, which, more than of the bride, is of the Bridegroom.
For not He has left us, but we have left Him.
He who will come at the end in His Glory, already comes now every day, in patience towards us (2Pt 3,8s).
BENEDICT XVI 21 October 2007
RispondiElimina...Today the main theme of the Word of God is prayer; indeed, we "ought always to pray and not lose heart", as the Gospel says. ...I would sum it up like this: the power that changes the world and transforms it into the Kingdom of God, in silence and without fanfare, is faith - and prayer is the expression of faith. When faith is filled with love for God, recognized as a good and just Father, prayer becomes persevering, insistent, it becomes a groan of the spirit, a cry of the soul that penetrates God's Heart.
Thus, prayer becomes the greatest transforming power in the world.
In the face of a difficult and complex social reality, as yours certainly is, it is essential to strengthen hope which is based on faith and expressed in unflagging prayer. It is prayer that keeps the torch of faith alight. Jesus asks, as we heard at the end of the Gospel: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Lk 18: 8). It is a question that makes us think. What will be our answer to this disturbing question? Today, let us repeat together with humble courage: Lord, in coming among us at this Sunday celebration you find us gathered together with the lamp of faith lit. We believe and trust in you! Increase our faith!
The biblical Readings we have heard present several models to inspire us in our profession of faith, which is also always a profession of hope because faith and hope open the earth to divine power, to the power for good. They are the figures of the widow, whom we encounter in the Gospel parable, and of Moses, of whom the Book of Exodus speaks. The widow of the Gospel (Lk 18: 1-8) makes us think of the "little", the lowliest, but also of so many simple, upright people who suffer because of abuse, who feel powerless in the face of the perduring social malaise and are tempted to despair. To them Jesus repeats: look at this poor widow, with what tenacity does she insist and in the end succeeds in being heard by a dishonest judge! How could you imagine that your Heavenly Father, who is good and faithful and powerful, who desires only his children's good, would not do justice to you in his own time? Faith assures us that God hears our prayers and grants them at the appropriate moment, although our daily experience seems to deny this certainty. In fact, in the face of certain events in the news or of life's numerous daily hardships which the press does not even mention, the supplication of the ancient Prophet: "O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you, "Violence!' and you will not save?" (Heb 1: 2) wells up in the heart spontaneously. There is one answer to this heartfelt invocation: God cannot change things without our conversion, and our true conversion begins with the "cry" of the soul imploring forgiveness and salvation. Christian prayer is not, therefore, an expression of fatalism or inertia; on the contrary, it is the opposite of evasion from reality, from consoling intimism. It is the force of hope, the maximum expression of faith in the power of God who is Love and does not abandon us.
The prayer Jesus taught us which culminated in Gethsemane has the character of "competitiveness", that is, of a struggle because we line up with determination at the Lord's side to fight injustice and conquer evil with good; it is the weapon of the lowly and the poor in spirit, who reject every type of violence. Indeed, they respond to it with evangelical non-violence, thereby testifying that the truth of Love is stronger than hatred and death.
-->This also emerges in the First Reading, the famous account of the battle between the Israelites and Amalek's men ( Ex 17: 8-13a). It was precisely prayer, addressed with faith to the true God, that determined the fate of that harsh conflict. While Joshua and his men were tackling their adversaries on the battlefield, Moses was standing on the hilltop, his hands uplifted in the position of a person praying. These raised hands of the great leader guaranteed Israel's victory. God was with his people; he wanted them to win but made Moses' uplifted hands the condition for his intervention.
RispondiEliminaIt seems incredible, but that is how it is: God needs the raised hands of his servant! Moses' raised arms are reminiscent of the arms of Jesus on the Cross: the outspread, nailed arms with which the Redeemer won the crucial battle against the infernal enemy. His fight, his arms raised to the Father and wide open for the world, ask for other arms, other hearts that continue to offer themselves with his same love until the end of the world.
HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
RispondiElimina, 16 October 2016
At the start of today’s celebration, we addressed this prayer to the Lord: “Create in us a generous and steadfast heart, so that we may always serve you with fidelity and purity of spirit” (Collect).
By our own efforts, we cannot give ourselves such a heart. Only God can do this, and so in the prayer we ask him to give it to us as his “creation”. In this way, we come to the theme of prayer, which is central to this Sunday’s scriptural readings and challenges all of us who are gathered here for the canonization of new Saints. The Saints attained the goal. Thanks to prayer, they had a generous and steadfast heart. They prayed mightily; they fought and they were victorious.
So pray! Like Moses, who was above all a man of God, a man of prayer. We see him today in the battle against Amalek, standing atop the hill with his arms raised. From time to time, however, his arms would grow weary and fall, and then the tide would turn against the people. So Aaron and Hur made Moses sit on a stone and they held up his arms, until the final victory was won.
This is the kind of spiritual life the Church asks of us: not to win by war, but to win with peace!
There is an important message in this story of Moses: commitment to prayer demands that we support one another. Weariness is inevitable. Sometimes we simply cannot go on, yet, with the support of our brothers and sisters, our prayer can persevere until the Lord completes his work.
Saint Paul writes to Timothy, his disciple and co-worker, and urges him to hold fast to what he has learned and believed (cf. 2 Tim 3:14). But Timothy could not do this by his own efforts: the “battle” of perseverance cannot be won without prayer. Not sporadic or hesitant prayer, but prayer offered as Jesus tells us in the Gospel: “Pray always, without ever losing heart” (Lk 18:1). This is the Christian way of life: remaining steadfast in prayer, in order to remain steadfast in faith and testimony. Here once again we may hear a voice within us, saying: “But Lord, how can we not grow weary? We are human… even Moses grew weary...!” True, each of us grows weary. Yet we are not alone; we are part of a Body! We are members of the Body of Christ, the Church, whose arms are raised day and night to heaven, thanks to the presence of the Risen Christ and his Holy Spirit. Only in the Church, and thanks to the Church’s prayer, are we able to remain steadfast in faith and witness.
We have heard the promise Jesus makes in the Gospel: “God will grant justice to his chosen ones, who cry to him day and night” (cf. Lk 18:7). This is the mystery of prayer: to keep crying out, not to lose heart, and if we should grow tired, asking help to keep our hands raised. This is the prayer that Jesus has revealed to us and given us in the Holy Spirit. To pray is not to take refuge in an ideal world, nor to escape into a false, selfish sense of calm. On the contrary, to pray is to struggle, but also to let the Holy Spirit pray within us. For the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray. He guides us in prayer and he enables us to pray as sons and daughters.
The saints are men and women who enter fully into the mystery of prayer. Men and women who struggle with prayer, letting the Holy Spirit pray and struggle in them. They struggle to the very end, with all their strength, and they triumph, but not by their own efforts: the Lord triumphs in them and with them. The seven witnesses who were canonized today also fought the good fight of faith and love by their prayers. That is why they remained firm in faith, with a generous and steadfast heart. Through their example and their intercession, may God also enable us to be men and women of prayer. May we cry out day and night to God, without losing heart. May we let the Holy Spirit pray in us, and may we support one another in prayer, in order to keep our arms raised, until Divine Mercy wins the victory.