We end our series of reflections on the Year of Prayer where it began—with Pope Francis. We hope that these reflections have been helpful to you, your friends, and your family. The Holy Father convoked this Year of Prayer so that we might more readily enter the joyous festivity of the Jubilee Year 2025 with renewed vigour in our Christian faith, and we hope that our brief look at prayer through the eyes of the saints and the liturgy might help our listeners prepare for the great Jubilee.
To close this Year of Prayer, then, perhaps let us allow Pope Francis to speak to us. Prayer is important for all the reasons we have covered this year, but perhaps an underrated reason for prayer is that Christ himself—God made flesh—also prayed! In the Gospels, the Pope tells us,
we learn that Jesus not only wants us to pray as he prays, but assures us that, even if our attempts at prayer are completely vain and ineffective, we can always count on his prayer. We must be aware of this: Jesus prays for me. Once, a good bishop told me that in a very bad moment in his life, a great trial, a moment of darkness, he looked up in the Basilica and saw this phrase written: “I, Peter, will pray for you”. And this gave him strength and comfort. And this happens every time that each of us knows that Jesus prays for him or for her. Jesus prays for us. In this moment, in this very moment. Do this memory exercise, repeat this. When there is a difficulty, when you feel the orbital pull of distractions: Jesus is praying for me. But, father, is this true? It is true! He said it himself. Let us not forget that what sustains each of us in life is Jesus’ prayer for every one of us, with our first and last name, before the Father, showing him the wounds that are the price of our salvation.
May our prayers become one with Christ’s prayer that we might be one with him.
In a ten-part series of Wednesday catecheses beginning 4 May 2011, Pope Benedict XVI—with his characteristic intellectual depth and historical rigour—explained how prayer is common to every civilization; and then, passing through the entire span of salvation history, traced the growth of human beings in prayer from the Pentateuch unto consummation in Christ. These reflections, available on the Holy See website, constitute a most edifying distillation of Pope Benedict’s deeply biblical spirituality, reminding us that our own prayer should make recourse to sacred scripture as an ever-renewing source of inspiration.
However, in this brief reflection, let us focus on the humble simplicity which lay at the heart of Pope Benedict’s intellectual erudition. As one of the greatest theological minds ever to succeed Saint Peter, Benedict enjoyed a stellar university career and continued to publish important works as a cardinal and as pope. From completing his doctorate summa cum laude at the age of twenty-six despite the interruption of the Second World War, to writing his brilliant Jesus of Nazareth trilogy near the end of his life, Pope Benedict’s faith was marked by a loving and untiring quest for the truth made known in the person of Jesus Christ.
After taking the dramatic decision to resign the papacy, Pope Benedict humbly and dutifully made way for a successor while continuing to support the Church silently through his prayer. The frailty of old age took his mobility, his ability to write, and even his voice, but in his last months he remained steadfast with total trust in the Lord. What a wonderful paradox it is to know that, after nearly nine decades of life, thousands of pages written, hundreds of speeches and sermons delivered, that Pope Benedict’s final utterance was a simple, three-word prayer as though from the heart of a child: “Gesù, ti amo”—“Jesus, I love you.”
As Saint Paul wrote to Corinth, “If I speak with the tongues of men or of angels but have not love, then I am nothing but a clashing gong or a clanging cymbal.” This passage—which Joseph Ratzinger himself quoted in a famous homily to the cardinals on the eve of his election—seems to have been taken to heart by this pope himself. All his theological erudition and eloquence was rooted in an abiding love for Christ the Lord. His second encyclical, Caritas in Veritate is likewise a testimony to the inseparability of truth and love. Even if we cannot speak in the tongues of angels, or even with the eloquence of a younger Pope Benedict, let us also remain steadfast in the Lord, such that when our voices fail at the door of death, we still might say loudly in our hearts, “Jesus, I love you!”
Saint John Paul II’s monumental twenty-six year pontificate is full of eloquent moments, quotations, and actions whose inexhaustible depth cannot be summarized in these few words. And despite carrying the immense responsibility of shepherding a truly global Church, with so many causes for both rejoicing and sorrowing, John Paul always made time—even incredible amounts of time—for his own personal prayer. Those close to him recalled how he would spend up to six hours at a time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, while his own devotion to Mary ensured a prominent place for the Rosary in his daily schedule. “In prayer,” the Pope said, “you become one with the source of our true light – Jesus Himself.” And as he liked to often say, we come to Jesus only through his Mother—ad Iesum per Mariam.
The Rosary is my favorite prayer. A marvelous prayer! Marvelous in its simplicity and its depth. In the prayer we repeat many times the words that the Virgin Mary heard from the Archangel, and from her kinswoman Elizabeth… To pray the Rosary is to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and His mother.
Like St Therese and Mother Teresa before him, John Paul found comfort in the words passed on to us through the tradition of the Church. At times when our own eloquence and expressiveness might fail, one can never do wrong by leaning on the prayers we have learned from those who passed on the faith. In doing so, we imitate Mary’s surrender, saying with the Church her fiatmihi—be it done to me—allowing the gifts of these timeless prayers to renew our souls.
Closeness to the Eucharistic Christ in silence and contemplation does not distance us from our contemporaries but, on the contrary, makes us open to human joy and distress, broadening our hearts on a global scale. Through adoration the Christian mysteriously contributes to the radical transformation of the world and to the sowing of the gospel. Anyone who prays to the Eucharistic Saviour draws the whole world with him and raises it to God.
May we follow the example of Saint John Paul II by attentively praying the Rosary and visiting Christ often in the Blessed Sacrament, confident that we will be drawn up through Mary’s embrace into the heart of her Son.
Ven. Francis-Xavier Van Thuan | The Year of Prayer
By Joey Belleza, PhD (Cantab.)
Francis-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan’s story is one of remarkable perseverance under severe anti-Christian repression. Ordained a bishop in 1967, he was arrested after the fall of Saigon in 1975, being imprisoned in a Communist re-education camp for thirteen years, nine of which were spent in solitary confinement. He never reached the post appointed to him by Pope Paul VI—the important Diocese of Saigon—and upon his release in 1988, he remained under house arrest in Hanoi. In 1991, he was allowed to visit Rome, but never to return to Vietnam. Bishop Van Thuan served Pope John Paul II in various capacities in the Roman Curia before being named a cardinal in February 2001. He died in Rome of cancer on 16 September 2002, and declared Venerable by Pope Francis in May 2017.
One who has undergone harsh imprisonment, torture, and solitary confinement for over a decade, as did Cardinal Van Thuan, would be well tempted to lose faith. And yet, he remained steadfast to God, adopting “ten rules of life” which fostered his perseverance even in the most difficult of times. We cannot hear review all ten rules, but in the context of the Year of Prayer, the Cardinal’s third rule is especially fitting: “I will hold firmly to one secret: prayer.” Yet what exactly did he pray? The Cardinal tells us:
I prayed with the word of God, the Psalms. I said the prayers I had recited in the family chapel every evening when I was a child. The liturgical songs came back to me. I often sang the Veni Creator, the hymns of the martyrs, the Sanctorum Meritis, the Credo… To truly appreciate those beautiful prayers, it is necessary to have experienced the darkness of incarceration, conscious of the fact that your suffering is offered for faithfulness to the Church.
Cardinal Van Thuan drew strength from his memories of the liturgy, singing the Psalms, the Creed, and even some of the great medieval Latin hymns whose use, unfortunately, has been eclipsed in most of the Church. His recourse to the great ninth century hymn Sanctorum Meritis places him in the company of another great saint who endured an unjust imprisonment—Thomas Aquinas—who used Sanctorum Meritis as an inspiration for one of his own Eucharistic hymns, Sacris Solemniis.
Cardinal Van Thuan is perhaps most famous for finding ways to celebrate Mass in prison (when not in solitary confinement). With the aid of other Catholic faithful outside the prison, as well as through the sympathy of his guards (some of whom later converted), he acquired small quantities of bread and wine. In his words:
I wrote home saying ‘Send me some wine as medication for stomach pains’. On the outside, the faithful understood what I meant. They sent me a little bottle of Mass wine, with a label reading ‘medication for stomach pains,’ as well as some hosts broken into small pieces. The police asked me: ‘Do you have pains in your stomach?’ ‘Yes’ ‘Here is some medicine for you!’ I will never be able to express the joy that was mine: each day, three drops of wine, a drop of water in the palm of my hand. I celebrated my Mass… At nine-thirty every evening at lights out everyone had to be lying down. I bent over my wooden board and celebrated Mass, by heart of course, and distributed Communion to my neighbours under their mosquito nets.
Not only did the cardinal draw strength from the prayers of the liturgy—he continued to draw strength from the source of the liturgy—Christ himself. If we are at times tempted to discard the rote prayers given to us by the Church, as if they would be less meaningful than something new or spontaneous, let us follow the example of Cardinal Van Thuan, who, in the most dire circumstances, found the in stable prayers of the Church a link to the unshakeable faith of the confessors and martyrs. With him, may the Church sing the words of that venerable hymn:
Sing, O Sons of the Church sounding the Martyrs’ praise! God’s true soldiers applaud, who, in their weary days, Won bright trophies of good, glad be the voice ye raise, While these heroes of Christ ye sing!
Prayer is ordered not only to our own personal good, but for the good of our neighbours. For this reason, the central part of Mass has the people ask that the sacrifice might be made acceptable to God “for our good and the good of all his holy Church.” The graces which flow from the Mass can extend to all people, and are meant to bring everyone, from the holiest saint to the most unrepentant sinner, into communion with God. The story of Saint Maria Goretti is a most remarkable example of how the effects of prayer can extend to even one who, in one moment in life, might have been seen as an enemy of Christ and his Gospel.
The third of seven children, Maria was devoutly dedicated to the Lord, living with her family in impoverished conditions. When she was nine, her father died, forcing the family to live in a shared house with the Serenelli family. On 5 July 1902, one of the Serenelli sons, the troubled nineteen year old Alessandro, took a lustful liking to the young Maria. In a moment when they were alone at the house, Alessandro threatened to stab Maria if she did not submit to his advances. She refused, warning Alessandro of his mortal sin. Still, the young man persisted, attempting to force himself on her, choking her as she resisted with all her might. Finally, in a fit of rage, Alessandro stabbed Maria fourteen times. Maria, gravely wounded, reached for the door, but Alessandro stabbed her three more times.
Maria was rushed to the hospital and Alessandro was arrested. She survived incredibly for a day, with the surgeons amazed that she had not succumbed to so many wounds to her heart and lungs. However, her resistance was only temporary. She breathed her last on 6 July, but not before pronouncing, “I forgive Alessandro Serenelli, and I want him with me in heaven forever.”
Instead of a life sentence, the court imposed a thirty year sentence, acknowledging Alessandro’s harsh upbringing and consequent mental illness. He was unrepentant for three years, until a bishop visited him. After this visit, he wrote to the bishop, saying how Maria appeared to him in a dream, in which she gave him white lilies which burned in his hand. From that day, Alessandro repented of the murder. He was released after twenty-seven years, whereupon he immediately sought out Maria’s mother and begged her forgiveness. She responded, “If my daughter can forgive him, who am I to withhold forgiveness?”
In 1947, Pius XII beatified Maria, and after a rapid canonization process, raised her to the altars in 1950. Her canonization Mass is remarkable in that not only the parents of the martyr were present, but also her murderer. Alessandro Serenelli, now a lay brother of the Capuchin Franciscans, joined the throng of Christian faithful praising God for the gift of Maria’s example.
Christ taught us to love our enemies, and Maria Goretti followed this commandment perfectly. May we also pray for those who wrong us, that they too might return to the loving embrace of God.
Saint Pio of Pietrelcina is one of the great prophetic voices of the twentieth century, with great insight into the spiritual problems of the individuals who came to him for advice, as well those of the world at large. He once lamented that “today’s society does not pray. That is why it is falling apart.” Living in an age marked by the most destructive wars in human history and the great crises of secularization that followed, Pio was astutely aware that a world alienated from God was caused by a deep spiritual malaise among peoples, which allowed the forces of evil to take root in modern societies. But he also identified a solution to the problem, a solution that must be taken to heart by individuals who might heroically lead society back to the embrace of the merciful Saviour: “Prayer is the best weapon we possess, the key that opens the heart of God.” In classic Capuchin Franciscan fashion, he encourages us to unite our spiritual turmoil to the sufferings of Christ crucified.
Pray that God will console you when you feel the burden of the Cross, for in doing so you are in no way acting against the will of God, but you are placing yourself beside the Son of God who asked His Father during the Agony in the Garden to send Him some relief. But if He is not willing to give it be ready to pronounce the same ‘Fiat,’ ‘So be it,’ that Jesus did.
Of course, conformity to Christ’s sufferings on Calvary is granted most perfectly through the celebration of the Eucharist, and unsurprisingly, the Mass holds a central place in Padre Pio’s prayer life. “It would be easier for the world to exist,” he says, “without the sun than without the Holy Mass.” He was also an ardent advocate of Eucharistic adoration, saying that “one thousand years of enjoying human glory is not worth even an hour spent sweetly communing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.” Therefore, he exhorts us:
Kneel down and render the tribute of your presence and devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Confide all your needs to him, along with those of others. Speak to him with filial abandonment, give free rein to your heart, and give him complete freedom to work in you as he thinks best.
May we visit Christ in the Blessed Sacrament often as Padre Pio did, uniting ourselves with the Passion of Christ, that we too might share the glory of the Resurrection.
Maintaining a consistent prayer life is often difficult, requiring the discipline that Saint Teresa of Avila mentions throughout her autobiography. The ascent to true union with God, as Teresa and Bonaventure have shown us, is often plagued by the distractions of daily life, to the point that we might even fall out of the habit of prayer. Starting again from zero, as it were further hinders our growth in virtue, and the task of entering into that discipline again can be discouraging. One saint who understood this struggle well was a latter day French disciple of Saint Teresa—Saint Therese of Lisieux, also known as Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, or simply “the Little Flower.”
Saint Therese of Lisieux is rare among the Doctors of the Church, in that she died very young (at the age of 24) and that she therefore did not enjoy the elite formal education of the others. And yet, by numbering her among the Doctors, the Church extols her example of simple faith and simple wisdom as having a spiritual and intellectual value comparable to that of other great teachers like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Teresa.
“Sometimes when I am in such a state of spiritual dryness that not a single good thought occurs to me,” Therese write, “I say very slowly the ‘Our Father,’ or the ‘Hail Mary,’ and these prayers suffice to take me out of myself.”
“I take refuge, then, in prayer, and turn to Mary, and our Lord always triumphs.”
This is the essence of her “Little Way,” that is, her simple way of uniting herself daily to Christ though humble acts of prayer and devotion. And while the breadth and complexity of the liturgy is proposed to us by the Church as a maximal and most secure means of receiving the graces of Christ, the extra-liturgical modes of conformity to Christ are also necessary for the life of faith.
“For me, prayer is a burst from my heart, it is a simple glance thrown toward heaven, a cry of thanksgiving and love in times of trial as well as in times of joy… Frequently, only silence can express my prayer.” Even the silence of our hearts can express our longing for God, our utter dependence on him. Thus, with many modes of prayer at our disposal, she exhorts us: “Let us not grow tired of prayer: confidence works miracles.”
Saint Therese, in her simplicity, has rightly taken her place among the great Doctors of the Church. And yet, as Thomas and Bonaventure stood on the shoulders of Aristotle, Saint Therese stood on the example of Archimedes when she said: “Our fulcrum is God; our lever, prayer; prayer which burns with love. With that we can lift the world!” Let us take heart from the humble example of Saint Therese, who faced moments of spiritual dryness not with despair, but with humble recourse to the prayers which Christ and his Church have given us.
We come to our final pair of stages in Bonaventure’s Itinerarium. The first pair of stages considered God as present in created things outside of us (extra nos), and the second pair considered God as imaged within us (intra nos). The last pair of stages considers God as supra nos—above us. The reflections here become even more speculative and theological, while also recognizing the limits of human language in describing God.
Instead of summarizing these stages sequentially, it may be helpful to describe them together. This pair considers God according to his two most proper names: Being (esse) and Goodness (bonum). Bonaventure represents these two names as the two cherubim facing each other atop the Ark of the Covenant. In the Old Testament, the space of the two cherubim was also known as the “mercy seat,” over which the presence of God hovered within the tabernacle. Just as the cherubim were close to yet beneath God, so do the names Being and Goodness represent the closest and most general human descriptions possible for God’s essence. Scripture and tradition use all sorts of metaphors for God; for example, God is described as a rock, a fortress, a warrior, and a king in various parts of the Bible. However, all metaphors limp and eventually fail. When we contemplate God as Being itself (what Thomas Aquinas described as ipsum esse) or as Goodness itself, we are using the most perfect names we have for God which are not subject to limitation and change. That the two cherubim face each other is taken by Bonaventure to mean that these most perfect names of Being and Goodness are meant to be contemplated together in preparation for the final ascent to God.
At the end of the sixth stage, one has ascended as far as possible by a maximum of human effort. However, all these stages remain preparatory in light of true union with God, which cannot be achieved by human effort alone but only received. After six chapters describing six stages of ascent, Bonaventure concludes the Itinerarium with a paradoxical seventh chapter describing the perfect and final ascent which was granted to Saint Francis when he received the stigmata. This involves a recognition that God is beyond anything that human words can adequately describe. It requires humility and self-denial to the point of becoming like Christ—and in the case of Francis, this was manifested in his own wounded body. Bonaventure makes the radical claim that, in this final passing over into God, “we must cease all intellectual operations, leaving behind all created images and earthly cares and desires.” Even contemplating God as Being and Goodness must also be left behind, if we are to truly rise beyond the cherubim and behold the seraphim, as did Francis. Let us close our series on Bonaventure by quoting the end of the Itinerarium’s seventh chapter, where Bonaventure explains what full conformity to Christ entails.
But if you ask how these things should come to pass, seek grace, not doctrine; desire, not understanding; the groaning of prayer, not the study of lectures; the bridegroom, not the university master; God, not man; the dark cloud [caliginem], not clarity; not light, but a fire totally enflamed and transferred into God with excessive anointings and most ardent affections. This fire is God, and this path is in Jerusalem, and Christ ignites it in the fervour of his most ardent passion, and he who truly perceives it, says: “My soul chooses hanging and my bones choose death” (Job 7:15). Whosoever loves this death can see God, for it is doubtlessly true: “No man shall see me and live” (Ex 33:20). Let us die [moriamur], therefore, and enter into the dark cloud; let us impose silence on our cares, desires, and phantasms; let us pass over [transeamus] with Christ crucified from this world to the Father, so that, with the Father shown to us, we might say with Phillip: “It is enough for us” (Jn 14:8); let us hear with Paul: “My grace is enough for you” (2 Cor 12:19); let us rejoice with David, saying: “My flesh and my heart fail, O God of my heart, and you O God are my portion always (Psalm 73:26). Blessed be the Lord forever, and let all the people say: let it be, let it be. (Ps 106:48)” Amen.
Following our previous look at Bonaventure’s first two stages of ascent in the Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, we now rise to consider the second pair of the seraph’s six wings. Here, noting how the human person is a microcosm of the wider cosmos, Bonaventure explains how the powers of our mind also reflect something of the Creator’s wisdom, but, since we are uniquely made in the image and likeness of God, the similitude between our created faculties and God enjoys a much closer link.
In the third stage, the Seraphic Doctor looks at our process of cognition, or the way we know things. We have, for Bonaventure, the three following faculties. The memory is the faculty which stores and recalls past events. The intelligence or intellect is that by which we understand the nature of things. The will is the faculty by which we choose certain goods and particular actions. Memory precedes and begets intellect; and by remembering things and knowing what they are, we can—by means of the will—choose or not choose certain goods and actions. In this threefold structure of the mind, Bonaventure finds an analogy for the Blessed Trinity. The memory is like the Father, summing up all things in his eternal mind; the intellect is like the eternal Logos or the Son, which is begotten by the memory. Finally, the will is like the Spirit—the love which chooses all things well and in right order. Thus, in the study of the human person’s unique powers—what today we call philosophical anthropology—we discover an even stronger vision of the divine nature.
In the fourth stage, the mind can reflect even more intensely on the beauty of the faith, discovering through its threefold faculties more sets of threefold mysteries which are unfolded with the aid of revelation, scripture, and the Church. For example, let us take a paraphrased quotation from this fourth stage:
The image of our mind must be clothed in the three powers of spiritual wisdom, by which the soul is purified, enlightened, and perfected… So while the soul, believing, hoping, and loving Jesus Christ, who is the incarnate, uncreated and inspired Word—that is to say, the way, the truth, and the life—in faith believes Jesus Christ to be the uncreated Word, which is the Word and splendour of the Father. In hope, [the soul] it yearns to receive the inspired Word. And in love, it embraces the incarnate Word, delighting in Him and entering into Him in ecstatic love.
The significance of this series of threes, rooted in the three powers of the soul which are known by natural reason, is further bolstered by a reflection on the revealed data given through Sacred Scripture and the tradition of the Church. Thus, theology begins to take its place on the ascent to God here, in the fourth stage. “These two middle steps,” says Bonaventure, “through which we enter so as to contemplate God within ourselves, as in the reflections of created images, are like wings, stretched out in order to take flight.” Let us therefore pray for those engaged in the study of anthropology and theology, that in their investigations of things human and divine, they might take flight into a higher knowledge of both man and God. In doing so, may we also come to know the truth about God and man through the one who is himself God-made-man.
In our previous reflection, we introduced the life and person of Saint Bonaventure, describing him as a mediator and unifier in a context of crisis for both the Franciscan order and for the Church at large. Now we can begin to consider one of his most famous works, the Itinerarium Mentis in Deum or Journey of the Mind to God, as a way to help us to think about prayer and union with God.
After Bonaventure was elected as Minister General, he went on retreat to Mount Alverna—the same mountain where Saint Francis witnessed a vision of a six-winged crucified seraph and thereafter received the stigmata, or the wounds of Christ on his own body. Moreover, Bonaventure identifies the crucifed seraph as Christ himself. Contemplating this episode of Francis’s life, Bonaventure recounts how the seraph’s six wings could be understood as “six levels of uplifting illuminations though which the soul is prepared, as it were by certain stages or steps, to pass over to peace through the ecstatic rapture of Christian wisdom. There is no other way but through the most burning love of the Crucified.” Just as the prophet Isaiah described the six seraphic wings as divided into pairs (“with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying”), the six stages of ascent in the Itinerarium are also divided into successive pairs. In this reflection, we will treat of the first pair of stages, wherein the mind considers God through the signs of the created world.
In stage one, the mind contemplates the wisdom, power, and goodness of God present in all creatures, and acknowledges God as the source of all created perfections. Through our senses, we observe the physical and sensible properties of various created things, such as the sweetness of honey or the refreshment of a spring, and we can attribute to God the maximum of these properties—God is most sweet or the source of all sweetness; God gives eternal refreshment to the soul. Thus, learning about the observable world through what we today call the natural sciences and the historical sciences can also help point us to God. Beyond the study of these sciences, which treats of creation and being in their changeable properties, we also can study being in itself, or the branch of philosophy known as metaphysics. Together, natural science, history, and metaphysics form part of this first stage of ascent, for they look as the world as it is, seeing glimpses of God’s wisdom across the breadth of creation.
In the second stage, the mind more deeply considers the created world but sees in the numerical and proportional harmony of creatures certain traces or vestiges of the mysteries of faith. Bonaventure explains this through, for example, the seven sensible properties of beings as reflecting the sevenfold perfection of the created order. Or, we can think about how an object giving delight is at once beautiful, pleasing, and wholesome (in Bonaventure’s alliterative Latin, speciosa, suavis, et salubris), and that this threefold delightfulness reflects the eternal Trinity. Therefore, in a first level of abstraction from the material and changeable world, the field of mathematics can also assist us in the contemplation of God, in that it helps us understand the universal harmony and structure of the created world. Here Bonaventure quotes Augustine: “number is the foremost exemplar in the mind of the Creator”.
These two stages, Bonaventure says, are “the two wings around the feet of the seraph”. In these lower levels of contemplation, we gaze upon the beauty of the created world, reflecting upon its proportionalities and harmonies, and see in them a faint trace of the Creator’s mind. Natural science, history, metaphysics, and mathematics are means for this end. Therefore, the role of physicists, engineers, mathematicians, and historians can also be prayerful enterprises, for they illuminate the divine wisdom present in the events of history and in the structure of creation. Let us therefore pray for scientists, mathematicians, and historians, that as they unfold the mysteries of the created world, we might more fully recognize and appreciate the mind of God present in all things.
