"True prayer is the mainspring of the world, because it keeps it open to God. That’s shy without prayer there is no hope, but only delusion". It was said by the Pope, as he officiated this afternoon in the basilica of S. Sabina the rite of the imposition of the Ashes, which marks the beginning of Lent. According to Benedict XVI, "it is not the presence of God that alienates man, but His absence: without the true God, Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, hopes turn into delusions, which drive people to escape from reality". It is just because of this, went on the Pontiff, that "speaking with God, remaining before Him, letting ourselves be enlightened and cleansed by His Word, brings us instead into the very heart of reality, into the inner Driving Force behind the cosmic becoming, brings us as it were into the beating heart of the universe". Prayer then as an antidote to "hidden lies", "compromises" and "different forms of selfishness": "Without the dimension of the prayer warned the Holy Father , the human self would end up withdrawing into itself, and one’s conscience, that should be the echo of God’s voice, risks being reduced to a mirror of the self, so that one’s inner talk becomes a monologue, open to thousands of self-justifications" (segue).
