Vatican City, Jun 13, 2012 / 09:24 am
Pope Benedict XVI says that the life of St. Paul shows that God can work wonders through those who grow ever closer to him in prayer.
"As our union with the Lord grows and our prayer becomes more intense, we too come to focus on the essential and to understand that it is not the power of our own means that creates the Kingdom of God, but God who works miracles through our very weakness," the Pope said during the June 13 general audience in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall.
Continuing his recent weekly exploration of the lessons taught by the prayer life of St. Paul, Pope Benedict turned to the apostle's experience of contemplative prayer as recorded in his Second Letter to the Corinthians.
He noted that in "defending the legitimacy of his apostolate, Paul appeals above all to his profound closeness to the Lord in prayer, marked by moments of ecstasy, visions and revelations," and yet, at the same time, he also "willingly boasts of his weakness, in order that the power of Christ might dwell in him."