GENERAL AUDIENCE: PRAYER, SOURCE OF LIFE AND SALVATION

VATICAN CITY, JUL 9, 2003 (VIS) - Today, in the last general audience celebrated in the Paul VI Hall before he moves tomorrow to the summer residence at Castelgandolfo, the Holy Father spoke about Psalm 142, "Prayer in tribulation." This prayer is recited "at the beginning of the day and serves as a proposition of fidelity and an appeal for divine help," said the Pope.

The Pope told the 7,000 people present that the psalm begins with "an intense and insistent invocation directed to God who is faithful to the promises of salvation offered to the people." Later, "a dramatic situation" is described: "The enemy, who represents evil in history and the world, has driven [the faithful] to the thresholds of death."

Putting their trust in God, he continued, the faithful "ask to be saved from their enemies and freed from anguish" and they ask God to teach them how to fulfill His will. "We must make this admirable petition ours as well," he affirmed. "If it is not accompanied by a strong desire for docility toward God, our faith in Him is not genuine."

"Starting out in a very painful situation," he concluded, "prayer gives way to hope, joy and light, thanks to a sincere adherence to God and to His will, which is a will to love. And this is the power of prayer, the source of life and salvation."

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