Pope Francis urged people to truly listen to God’s voice rather than look to the Lord for a confirmation of their own ideas in his Angelus address on Sunday.

“Brothers and sisters, when faith and prayer are true, they open the mind and the heart; they do not close them,” Pope Francis said on August 11.

Speaking from the window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the pope asked people to be aware of the temptation of looking to God “for a confirmation of what we think” rather than “truly listening to what the Lord has to say to us.”

“This way of addressing God does not help us to truly encounter him, nor to open ourselves up to the gift of his light and his grace, in order to grow in goodness, to do his will and to overcome failings and difficulties,” he said.

“Let us ask ourselves, then: In my life of faith, am I capable of being truly silent within myself and listening to God? Am I willing to welcome his voice beyond my own mindset and also with his help to overcome my fears?”

Pope Francis asked the Virgin Mary for her intercession to help Christians to listen with faith to the Lord’s voice and “to do his will courageously.”

After leading the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square in the Angelus prayer in Latin, the pope offered his greetings to a group of students who walked more than 100 miles from the Italian town of Assisi in pilgrimage to the Vatican.

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