Pope Francis has inaugurated a “Year of Prayer” in the lead-up to the Jubilee of Hope in 2025, with aides outlining the Vatican’s vision for how believers ought to better incorporate prayer into their daily lives.

During his Angelus address on Sunday (21st), Pope Francis officially opened a year of prayer leading up to the 2025 celebration, saying, “The next few months will lead us to the opening of the Holy Door, with which we will begin the jubilee.”

“I ask you to intensify your prayer to prepare yourselves to live well this event of grace and to experience the strength of hope in God,” he said, saying the Year of Prayer is dedicated to “rediscovering the great value and absolute need of prayer in personal life, in the life of the Church, and of the world.”

Speaking to journalists yesterday (23rd), Italian Archbishop Rino Fisichella noted that the pope in his February 2022 letter announcing the theme of the 2025 jubilee, “Pilgrims of Hope,” said he wanted 2024 to be a “symphony of prayer” in preparation for the jubilee.

For this reason, Fisichella said the year 2024 would be “one of preparation for the Jubilee which is about to begin and a year during which the spiritual significance of the Jubilee must emerge more clearly, something which goes far beyond the necessary and urgent forms of structural organization.”

To this end, he outlined the steps taken thus far to organize the jubilee and said that rather than a time for holding specific initiatives, 2024 is “a privileged time in which to rediscover the value of prayer, the need for daily prayer in the Christian life.”

It is a time, he said, “to discover how to pray, and above all how to educate the people of today in prayer, in this age of digital culture, so that prayer can be effective and fruitful.”

As part of their contribution to the 2024 Year of Prayer, the Carmelites at Chilswell Priory, Oxford have launched a number of courses and resources aimed at enhancing the value and understanding of prayer.

“Few people have any idea of the quality of their own prayer,” said Fr Alexander Ezechukwu, Prior at Boars Hill. “Adding to the confusion is the fact that there is usually nothing to measure it against.”

Under their popular Teresian Press imprint, Fr Alexander and the priory have produced a book entitled How Do I Pray Today?, which was designed for that very purpose: to allow a privileged insight into how others pray and ways of relating to God – every approach to God being as unique as the person praying.

Volume 1, The Experience of Prayer, contains 11 personal testimonies from people in all walks of life – married or single, priests, lay or religious – which encourage us to ‘pray always and never lose heart’ (Luke 18:1). Combined with Questions for Reflection or Discussion, it is a perfect book for use by groups, or by individuals at home or on a private retreat.

You can order How Do I Pray Today: Volume 1: The Experience of Prayer from the Teresian Press website:

https://carmelite.org.uk/products/how-do-i-pray-today