Pope Francis received a delegation from the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network on January 26 and emphasized the priority of prayer in the Christian life.
“Action alone, apostolic though it may be, without prayer is an entrepreneurial matter,” the Pope said. “Prayer is what gives meaning to the apostolate.”
“The first duty of a bishop is to pray,” he continued. The “first duty of a Christian is to pray. Prayer. Otherwise, we run the risk of becoming a purely natural, worldly institution. Or a political one.”
The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (Apostleship of Prayer), a Jesuit apostolate, was founded in 1844. The papal practice of entrusting prayer intentions to the Apostleship of Prayer dates from the reign of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903).