Prayer - our relationship with Christ

"It is necessary to enter into real friendship with Jesus in a personal relationship with him and not to know who Jesus is only from others or from books, but to live an ever deeper personal relationship with Jesus, where we can begin to understand what he is asking of us." -- Pope Benedict XVI, 6 Apr 2006

"This mystery [of faith], then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer." -- Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), no. 2558

“We have spoken of faith as an encounter with the One who is Truth and Love. We have also seen that this is an encounter which is both communitarian and personal, and must take place in all the dimensions of our lives through the exercise of our intelligence, the choices of freedom, the service of love. A privileged place exists, however, where this encoutner takes place more directly. Here it is reinforced and deepened and thus can truly permeate and mark the whole o f life: this space is prayer” -- Pope Benedict XVI, 5 Jun 2006