3.1.1- Truth of the present ego

The one who truly draws near to God, as does the praying person, ought also to experience… how far away he is. It is perhaps a somewhat strange principle, but it enters into the nature of Christian prayer or into the logic of divine intimacy. Perhaps it is even a proof of the authenticity of this drawing near, because when one approaches the Radically Other it is inevitable to perceive all the otherness and diversity, or to let his light illumine and evidence how much in us contradicts his word, but often it is not so evident.

Every prayer ought to contain this penitential accent, otherwise it is not true, simply. And not only in the purely penitential or negative sense of the word, with a consequent request for pardon, but in that maybe even deeper sense of letting the evil which is in us emerge, our demons, the often unconfessed roots of certain un-Gospel-like attractions, those very subtle motivational  tendencies that risk not ever being discovered and that radically undermine—precisely because uncontrolled—every option for an Evangelical life… Not only the examination of conscience, but every oration, from lectio of the Word to the prayer of the Psalm, ought also to be a pilgrimage toward the sources of the ego and determine a greater knowledge of one’s heart.