Morelia, Mexico, Feb 16, 2016 / 08:30 am
Update: 11:50 am EST - Below is the full text of Pope Francis' Feb. 16 homily during Mass with priests, men and women religious, consecrated people and seminarians at "Venustiano Carranza" Stadium in Morelia, Mexico.
There is a saying which goes "tell me how you pray, and I will tell you how you live; tell me how you live and I will tell you how you pray. Because showing me how you pray, I will learn to find the God for whom you live, and showing me how you live, I will learn to believe in the God to whom you pray". For our life speaks of prayer and prayer speaks of our life; our life speaks through our prayer and our prayer speaks through our life. Praying is something learned, just as we learn to walk, to speak, to listen. The school of prayer is the school of life and in the school of life we progress in the school of prayer.
And Paul to his disciple Timothy, when he taught him or exhorted him to live the faith, he said to him to remember his mother and his grandmother. And the seminarians when they entered the seminary, many times they asked me: Father, but I would like to have a more intense prayer life, more mental prayer. Look, keep praying as you were taught at home and after, step by step, your prayer will grow as you grow in life. Prayer you learn, just like with life.
Jesus wished to introduce his companions into the mystery of Life, into the mystery of His life. He showed them by eating, sleeping, curing, preaching and praying, what it means to be Son of God. He invited them to share his life, his interiority, and in his presence among them he allowed them to touch, in his flesh, the life of the Father. He helped them to experience, in his gaze, in his going out in power, the newness of saying "Our Father". In Jesus this expression has no trace of routine or mere repetition. On the contrary, it contains a sense of life, of experience, of authenticity. With these two words, "Our Father", he knew how to live praying and to pray living.
Jesus invites us to do the same. Our first call is to experience this merciful love of the Father in our lives, in our experiences. His first call is to introduce us into the new dynamic of love, of sonship. Our first calling is to learn to say, "Our Father", that is, Abba.