Main news for 10 July 2025

We have a rather strange custom of connecting certain life situations with certain prayers, of turning for help in prayer to particular saints depending on the difficulties we are experiencing. The word of God gives us no basis for this. On the contrary, in today's apostolic reading the apostle Paul says: pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and supplication. What is essentially important in prayer, according to the apostle's word, is faithfulness to God, expressed in the fact that we turn to Him at all times, and not only in a difficult moment.

It is also essential that the apostle calls us to pray in the spirit. The Greek original has no capital letters except at the beginning of periods, and therefore these words allow a double interpretation. First, prayer must come from the very depth of the human person; prayer in the spirit is far from limited to the prayer text we pronounce with our lips. Second, it is probable that the apostle means prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit, and not only the babbling of which a person is capable by himself. The matter is by no means special gifts of the Spirit, such as prayer in other tongues. Yet if we believe in the reality and effectiveness of the sacrament of chrismation, in which the Lord through the Church gives us not manifestations of the Spirit, but the Spirit Himself, then our capacity for meeting the Almighty in prayer is limited by our will and only by our will.