Pope urged the faithful to pray for
Ukraine at the end of his weekly general audience in St Peter's
Square.
"Let's not forget to pray for martyred Ukraine, always asking
the Lord for the gift of peace," said Francis.
Pope Francis continued his cycle of reflections on the theme of
discernment during his catechesis at the Wednesday General
Audience.
Addressing the faithful, the Pope highlighted that good
discernment also requires self-knowledge because "it involves
our human faculties: memory, intellect, will, affections."
"Often, we do not know how to discern because we do not know
ourselves well enough, and so we do not know what we really
want," the Pope said.
The Holy Father noted that underlying spiritual doubts and
vocational crises are not infrequently an insufficient dialogue
between religious life and our human, cognitive and affective
dimensions.
He illustrated this by referring to a writer on spirituality who
underlined how many difficulties on the theme of discernment are
indicative of problems of another kind, which need to be
recognized and explored.
The author expressed his conviction that the greatest obstacle
to true discernment and to true growth in prayer is not the
intangible nature of God, but the fact that "we do not know
ourselves sufficiently, and do not even want to know ourselves
as we really are" as "almost all of us hide behind a mask, not
only in front of others, but also when we look in the mirror."
Knowing ourselves is not difficult, but it is laborious," Pope
Francis affirmed.
"It implies patient soul-searching. It requires the capacity to
stop, to "deactivate the autopilot", to acquire awareness of our
way of acting, of the feelings that dwell within us, of the
recurrent thoughts that condition us, often unconsciously."
More so, he continued, it requires distinguishing between
emotions and spiritual faculties, separating between "I feel"
and "I am convinced," and knowing that "I feel like" is not the
same as "I want."
In this way, he explained, we come to recognize that the view we
have of ourselves and of reality is at times somewhat distorted.
The Pope insisted that "to realize this is a grace!" because,
very often, it can happen that erroneous convictions about
reality, based on past experiences, strongly influence us,
limiting our freedom to strive for what really matters in our
lives.
Pope Francis explained that similar to the way passwords are
required to enter into programmes in our age of information
technology, even the spiritual life has "passwords," - words
that "touch the heart because they refer to what we are most
sensitive to."
He warned that the tempter also knows these keywords and thus,
it is important that we too know them to avoid finding ourselves
"where we do not want to be" because "temptation does not
necessarily suggest bad things, but often haphazard things,
presented with excessive importance."
In this way, explained the Pope, temptation hypnotizes us with
the attraction that these things stir in us, things that are
beautiful but illusory, that cannot deliver what they promise,
leaving us in the end with a sense of emptiness and sadness.
These may include degrees, careers, relationships - things
praiseworthy in themselves, but toward which, if we are not
free, make us risk harbouring unrealistic expectations.
"From this misunderstanding often comes the greatest suffering,
because none of those things can be the guarantee of our
dignity," the Pope said, stressing the importance of knowing
ourselves and what we are most sensitive to in order to be able
to protect ourselves from those who present themselves with
persuasive words to manipulate us, as well as to recognize what
is really important to us.
The Holy Father then upheld examination of conscience as an aid
that can help us on this path.
He described it as "the good habit of calmly rereading what
happens in our day, learning to note in our evaluations and
choices what we give most importance to, what we are looking for
and why, and what we eventually find."
It also helps us to learn to "recognize what satiates the
heart," stressed the Pope, for "only the Lord can give us
confirmation of what we are worth" and "there is no obstacle or
failure that can prevent His tender embrace."
Concluding his catechesis, Pope Francis underlined that Prayer
and self-knowledge enable us to grow in freedom, as they are
basic elements of Christian existence, as well as precious
elements for finding one's place in life.
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