Feb 7, 2008 / 00:06 am
Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday distributed ashes at the ancient Church of Santa Sabina on the Aventine hill in Rome. In his homily at the austere 1,500 year-old church, Vatican Radio reports that the Pope called prayer a “dialogue with God” and the “engine of the world.” He also reminded Catholics that Lent is a journey of conversion that invites all believers to prayer, penitence, and fasting.
Pope Benedict said that Christ’s prayer on the Cross, “shows us a person abandoned by all entrusts himself completely in God.”
“Lent teaches us to experience God as the only anchor of Salvation," he said.
The Pope continued, saying that "true prayer is a dialogue with God, and without this our interior dialogue becomes a monologue, giving rise to thousands of self-justifications. Prayer, therefore, is a guarantee of being open to others. True prayer is the engine of the world, because it keeps us open to God. Without prayer, there is not hope, just illusion, which induces us to escape from reality".