Dear brothers and sisters attending to this conference,

The topic I will present in my speech will be:

The prayer as the strength of the believer and the centre of his conscience.

When we talk about prayer there is no doubt that it includes the one who is praying � the believer and the one who listens - God. To man as the most perfect God�s creature, created as his own image and his own likeness, has been given the ability and the freedom to communicate with his creator; this communication starts with the same words the creator taught them, like a real and good parent. The miracle in the creation of man it�s not his ability to talk but his ability to communicate in a conversation with God.

Rightly, then, prayer can be considered a conversation with God. The prayer, as conversation with the creator of the universe, is the biggest privilege that has been given to the man.

Conversation implies dialog, knowledge, trust, estimate and so on, like any other relationship that we, as people, know and live every day. But not only this: Jesus taught to his disciples to relate to God with the word �Father� (Mt 6.9-13), as their parent. The prayer, as conversation with the Creator is, in the end, fellowship with the Father.

Let�s imagine a group of children of a primary school when they meet face to face with the school headmaster, they instinctively feel at the same time insecurity and fear, except one of them: he is the headmaster�s son. Behind the figure of the headmaster, serious and sometimes strict, he sees the beloved person for him, his father. Headmaster and father; a strange combination, but for a child it is not complicated at all. His father is the headmaster and the headmaster is his father, it�s as simple as this.

What do we want to say with this?

God is our Creator, He is holy, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, and so on, but he his most of all, our Father; it�s as simple as this. In the Gospel, Christ tells to those who are listening to him that, to enter in the kingdom of heaven they need to become like children (Mt 18,2). The relationship with God asks first of all honesty, simplicity and confidence even from �grown up� people.

God and the believer, the Creator and the creature, the Father and the child; God, in his majesty, becomes small and in his limitless becomes limited, in his transcendence becomes tangible, and this, brothers and sisters, becomes real through the prayer. Prayer is the man�s cry toward the Creator, it�s his cry to the Father: �O LORD, God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee.� (Ps 88:1). Man feels the compelling need to communicate with his creator. His goal is to meet Him; his completeness is the union with Him; his longing is satisfied only in His presence.

We could think of the man�s pilgrimage on hearth as a research aimed to find the Father, his goal to come back at him, to stay near Him. In this trip man is not alone, in his search for God, man is not lost, the Father himself is looking for the man. During his journey the believer feels the help and the strength God is giving him, feels the courage and the support derived from Him.

The prayer, as the strength of believer, is rooted in this relationship of fatherly love. In the prayer the believer turns to his Heavenly Father, he feels His presence, he is confident that his prayer is being listened. He knows that the Father listens to all his sighs, he is convinced that even in frustration and despair his Father will be there to help and comfort him.

In prayer is hidden a much love. Evagrio the Recluse considers the prayer as �the flower of kindness and of the freedom from anger�. In the prayer the mothers find the answer for their children, the artists their inspiration, the faithful his strength. There is hidden the mystery of salvation, there is hidden God himself. In the prayer we find what we have lost, the one we have been longing for. Here is wonderfully explained the mystery and I believe, we all will agree, that the most beautiful prayers are those of the children.

It�s a bit strange, but every time we think back of things and concepts which we think are very familiar and clear for us, we find out the opposite!

We can make our self�s a question: �What is prayer?! Is it a request, praise or an obligation? We all agree that it is all of them. But I would not be in contrast if someone will answer that prayer is also �the way�. It helps us not only to ask properly, not only to learn some rules or to shape an interior discipline. In prayer all these things can rightly be considered as means through which we come to that which is the most important, the knowledge.

I would like to present here to think about the prayer as knowledge, as an effort, as a research of the believer to discover God, to know the Father as his parent. Our research is concrete, our journey has an concrete destination, the person we want to meet is real and living. There the believer finds the security of his salvation; discovers the meaning of his life and of his existence, feels the divine love and the eternal joy that cannot be compared with the worldly one.

Rightly so, the prayer directs us to the Creator, moves us closer to Him, and keeps us to His presence. Through prayer we are illuminated and become light. For this reason the prayer could be considered the greatest occupation, the most precious engagement, the most fully human activity. It guides to the knowledge, it reveals things in simplicity, in it everything is hidden. Prayer relieves the believer from the depths of the earth to the heavenly realms. The prayer as conversation with God, as fellowship, as journey, as knowledge is the motive of the believer, is his strength.

Thank you