Prayer is essential for grasping life's meaning, pope says at audience

People don't really know who they are or what their life's reason is unless they pray regularly, Pope Benedict XVI said. Each day people need " to offer the proper amount of time to prayer, to this honesty to God, to this journey to seek God in order to see him and find friendship with him so that we can experience true life," the pope said Feb. 2 at his weekly general audience.

The pope's audience talk was devoted to the life and teaching of St. Teresa of Avila, the 16th-century mystic and doctor of the church. "She teaches us to truly feel the thirst for God that exists in the depths of our hearts, this wish to see God, to seek God, to speak to God, to be God's friend," the pope said. "All of us need this friendship, which we must renew day by day," he said. The pope said that after a series of talks focusing on women who made important charity to the church in the Middle Ages, he would begin dedicating his audience talks to St. Teresa and other doctors of the church, saints who made important donations to understanding Christian doctrine. "St. Teresa is a true master of Christian life for the faithful in every age," Pope Benedict told the predictable 3,000 people who gathered for the general audience.