New letter by Benedict XVI reflects on Christian prayer

The text appears in La Fede del Futuro, the fourth instalment in a collection of previously unpublished writings by Joseph Ratzinger, issued by the Siena-based publishing house Edizioni Cantagalli.

The unpublished letter by Benedict, dated April 27, 2021, is titled “Introduction: Thoughts on Christian Prayer”, and sets out a concise, yet theologically dense, meditation on the nature of prayer as the fundamental religious act.

The text returns to themes that characterised Benedict’s theological work over decades, including Christ as mediator, the centrality of the Eucharist and the purification of human desire.

Pope Benedict XVI begins by defining prayer in general terms as “the fundamental religious act” and “the attempt to enter concretely into contact with God”. He distinguishes Christian prayer from other forms by stating that it is conducted “together with Jesus Christ and, at the same time, prays to him”.

Christ, he writes, is both man and God and therefore “can thus be the bridge, the pontifex, who makes it possible to overcome the infinite abyss between God and man”.

In this sense, he continues, Christ is “the ontological possibility of prayer”, and also its “practical guide”.

Benedict also writes that Christian prayer, insofar as it is prayer together with Christ, “is always anchored in the Eucharist, leads to it and takes place within it”. The Eucharist, he states, is “prayer fulfilled with one’s whole being” and represents the “critical synthesis of cult and true worship”.

In a concluding reflection, Benedict addresses what he calls objections to petitionary prayer, namely the view that true prayer should consist solely of praise rather than repeated requests. Such a position, he writes, would be foolish if it assumes that God should not be troubled with human needs. On the contrary, “we need God precisely in order to be able to live our everyday life starting from him and oriented toward him”.

Benedict pointed to the structure of the Lord’s Prayer, which consists of seven petitions, as evidence that asking is intrinsic to Christian prayer.

FULL STORY

In full: unpublished letter reveals Benedict XVI’s final reflections on prayer and the future of faith (By Niwa Limbu/Catholic Herald)