Thus is fulfilled and brought to completion the drama of prayer in the economy of creation and salvation'".

Pope Benedict XVI calls all of us into that same posture of prayer in the midst of the noise of the contemporary age. It is there, in the embrace of prayer, where he finds the source of his inner strength. It is there where we must begin to find our own. He has the kind of living faith that gets into the marrow of the bones of a man who truly walks with God, making him strong, steady and unafraid of any adversary. We can all find that same source of strength in the midst of the cacophony of the contemporary age.

He calls all of us to the kind of genuine conversion that comes only through prayer. Only a Church of holiness, mystery, mission and true majesty can accomplish the huge task that lies ahead of us. The Church that was born from the wounded side of Jesus Christ, who stretched His arms out on the tree of our redemption to embrace the world, is desperately in need of deep and profound conversion. Prayer is the path to that much needed conversion.

Through His Incarnation, Saving Life, Death, and Resurrection, Jesus opens the way to full communion with God for all men and women. He leads us out of the emptiness and despair that is the rotted fruit of the narcissism, nihilism and materialism of contemporary culture. When we enter into the dialogue of prayer, we can experience a progressive, dynamic and intimate relationship with God. He transforms us from within.

Through prayer, daily life takes on new meaning. It becomes a classroom of communion. In that classroom we learn the truth about who we are - and who we are becoming - in Jesus. Through prayer we receive new glasses through which we see the true landscape of life. Through prayer darkness is dispelled and the path of progress is illuminated.

The God who is Love hungers for the communion of sons and daughters - and we hunger for communion with Him - because He made us this way. Nothing else will satisfy. The early Church Father Origen once wrote: "Every spiritual being is, by nature, a temple of God, created to receive into itself the glory of God."

Mother Teresa once wrote: "God is the friend of silence, in that silence he will listen to us; there he will speak to our soul, and there we will hear his voice. The fruit of silence is faith. The fruit of faith is prayer, the fruit of prayer is love, the fruit of love is service and the fruit of service is silence.

"In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Silence gives us a new way of looking at everything. We need this silence in order to touch souls. God is the friend of silence. His language is silence. 'Be still and know that I am God'."

World Communications Day 2012 calls us all to rediscover the power of silence in the cacophony of the contemporary age.