“When you pray”, says Jesus, “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:6). First of all, the Lord calls us to enter this hidden place of the heart, patiently delving into it; he invites us to make an inner immersion that demands a journey of emptying and divesting ourselves. Once we have entered, he asks us to close the door to bad thoughts in order to safeguard a pure, humble and meek heart, through vigilance and spiritual combat. Only then can we abandon ourselves with confidence to intimate dialogue with the Father, who dwells and sees in secret, and in secret fills us with his gifts. (…) This vocation to worship and inner prayer, proper to every believer, in an exemplary way, in order to be witnesses in the Church to the beauty of the contemplative life. It is not an escape from the world, but a regeneration of the heart, so that it may be capable of listening, a source of the creative and fruitful action of the charity that God inspires in us. This call to interiority and silence, to live in contact with oneself, with one's neighbour, with creation and with God, is needed today more than ever, in a world increasingly alienated by the media and technology. From intimate friendship with the Lord, in fact, the joy of living, the wonder of faith and the taste for ecclesial communion are reborn. (Pope Leo XIV, Address to Italian Hermits, 11 October 2025)