Here is Pope Francis on prayer:
“A day lived without prayer risks being transformed into a bothersome or tedious experience. Everything that happens to us could turn into a badly endured and blind fate for us…Prayer is primarily listening and encountering God. The problems of everyday life, then, do not become obstacles, but appeals from God himself to listen to and encounter those who are in front of us. The trials of life thus change into opportunities to grow in faith and charity. The daily journey, including hardships, acquires the perspective of a “vocation.” Prayer has the power to transform into good what in life would otherwise be a sentence; prayer has the power to open the mind to a great horizon and to broaden the heart.”