"He is more," he said. "He welcomes us in His prayer so that we might pray in Him and through Him. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, the Gospel invites us to pray to the Father in Jesus's name."
He continued: "It is in Christ that this stupendous prayer is fulfilled, and in Him that it finds its complete truth. Without Jesus, our prayer risks being reduced to human effort, destined most of the time to failure. But He has taken on Himself every cry, every groan, every jubilation, every supplication … every human prayer."
"And let us not forget that the Holy Spirit prays in us; it is He who leads us to pray, who leads us to Jesus. He is the gift that the Father and the Son gave us to foster an encounter with God. And when we pray, it is the Holy Spirit who prays in our hearts."
The pope highlighted a saying by St. Augustine of Hippo, found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that Jesus "prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore let us acknowledge our voice in him and his in us."
The pope concluded: "This is why the Christian who prays fears nothing, he or she trusts in the Holy Spirit who was given to us as a gift and who prays in us, eliciting prayer. May the Holy Spirit, Teacher of prayer, teach us the path of prayer."
In his greetings to Polish pilgrims, Pope Francis noted that Nov. 11 is Poland's National Independence Day and recalled St. John Paul II's 1985 letter to youth, "Dilecti amici."
He said: "While we give thanks to the Lord of history for the gift of national and personal freedom, what St. John Paul II taught young people comes to mind: 'To truly be free does not at all mean doing everything that pleases me, or doing what I want to do. ... To be truly free means to use one's own freedom for what is a true good … to be truly free means to be a person of upright conscience, to be responsible, to be a person 'for others.'"
"May the Lord bless all Poles, giving peace and prosperity."