CATHOLIC FAITHWATCH: “Saint Anthony of Padua” – Pope Benedict XVI General Audience 2.10.10

June 13, 2018 Catholic News Wire - Faith Central - Steve Welsh Catholic, Catholic Faith, Headlines, Prayer, Saints & Blesseds

“… With his outstanding gifts of intelligence, balance, apostolic zeal and … mystic fervour, [St.] Anthony contributed significantly to the development of Franciscan spirituality. … He dedicated himself … to the study of the Bible and of the Church Fathers, acquiring … theological knowledge … Anthony laid the foundations of Franciscan theology * * * he commented on … texts of Scripture presented by the Liturgy, using the patristic and medieval interpretation of the four senses: the literal or historical, the allegorical or Christological, the tropological or moral, and the anagogical, which orients a person to eternal life. … Anthony proposes a true and proper itinerary of Christian life. * * * St. Anthony speaks of prayer as of a loving relationship that impels man to speak gently with the Lord, creating an ineffable joy that sweetly enfolds the soul in prayer. … prayer requires an atmosphere of silence … an interior experience that aims to remove the distractions caused by a soul’s anxieties, thereby creating silence in the soul itself. * * * … prayer is structured in four indispensable attitudes … obsecratio, oratio, postulatio, gratiarum actio. We might translate them in the following manner. The first step in prayer is confidently opening one’s heart to God; this is not merely accepting a word but opening one’s heart to God’s presence. Next, is speaking with him affectionately, seeing him present with oneself; then a very natural thing presenting our needs to him; and lastly, praising and thanking him. … we perceive … the role assigned to Divine Love which enters into the sphere of the affections, of the will and of the heart, and which is also the source from which flows a spiritual knowledge that surpasses all other knowledge. In fact, it is in loving that we come to know. … ‘Charity is the Ssoul of Faith, it gives it Life; without love, Faith dies’ … It is only the prayerful soul that can progress in spiritual life ….”