"Without prayer, there is no real experience of God". It was repeated by the Pope, in going over, in today’s general audience, the main steps in the life of Saint Benedict of Norcia, "immersed in a atmosphere of prayer, the supporting foundation of his life". "Benedict’s spirituality said the Pope to the about 22 thousand devotees who were in Saint Peter’s Square today was not out of reality", since, "in the restlessness and confusion of his time, he lived under the eyes of God and staring at God, without ever losing sight of the duties of everyday life and of man, with his real needs". According to Saint Benedict, "prayer is first of all a deed of listening, which must then be translated into actual action": thus "the life of the monk becomes a synthesis of action and contemplation". "As opposed to an easy, self-centred self-accomplishment, which is now often extolled warned the Holy Father , the first, inalienable commitment of the disciple of Saint Benedict is a sincere search for God, on the way traced by the humble and obedient Christ".
