» 08/17/2011 13:03 VATICAN Pope: pray and accompany me spiritually to Madrid for WYD At the general audience in Castel Gandolfo, Benedict XVI that tomorrow he will join the gathering of young people in Spain. He urges the faithful to find time every day to "nourish their spiritual life and contact with God."
Castel Gandolfo (AsiaNews) - Benedict XVI today called on the faithful to 'spiritually'' join him in ''prayer'' at the World Youth Day being held in Madrid and during his journey to the Spanish capital, which he will begin tomorrow. The pope called the WYD ''an important ecclesial event.'' ''Tomorrow I will go to Madrid, where I will have the joy of meeting many young people gathered there for the XXVI World Youth Day,'' the pope said, greeting the Italian-speaking pilgrims at the end of the general audience in the courtyard of his Castel Gandolfo residence. ''I ask you to join me spiritually in prayer in this important ecclesial event,'' said the pontiff, who also thanked the faithful for their intentions. It will be the third WYD for Pope Ratzinger with the Cologne edition, in August 2005, just months after his election, and that of Sydney in July 2008.
In the brief summer audience, Benedict XVI urged the faithful to find time during their day to meditate on the ''the mysteries of the faith''and ''think'' about what the Lord tells us in today's life. And this in a time when ''we are preoccupied with many activities, commitments, concerns, problems'', ''without a moment to stop and nourish our spiritual life and contact with God''. Mental prayer, the pontiff recalled ''is a crucial element on our path to Heaven.'' Benedict XVI recalled a word used by St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure, that of “mulling over” the meaning of “the mysteries of God” so they may be continuously resonate within us '' so that they become '' familiar'' and “sustain and nourish us”.
"Heaven is our destination, we can all get to heaven: the question is how,'' he said. Meditation ''means creating within us a state of meditation, inner silence, to reflect, absorb the mysteries of our faith and what God does in us, and not just things that come and go''. This ''rumination'' Ratzinger said, ''can be done in various ways.'' Taking the example of ''a short passage of Scripture - he listed - especially the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of the Apostles. Or a page of an spiritual author who makes the reality of God in our day closer and more present, perhaps taking advice from our confessor or spiritual director: Reading and reflecting on what we have read, focusing on it, trying to understand what he says to us, what he says today, and open our hearts to what the Lord wants to tell us and teach us.'' ''The Holy Rosary is a prayer of meditation,'' he concluded.
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