Pope confesses he shares Therese’s weakness, sometimes sleeps in prayer

“When I pray, sometimes I fall asleep,” Pope Francis confessed during the second episode of the Padre Nostro (“Our Father”) television program on the Italian Catholic television station TV2000, in an excerpt published on YouTube today.

“St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus did that too,” the pope recalled.

That also pleases God, he added, quoting Psalm 131.

That brief psalm says, in part,

O LORD, … I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul.

The television program, born of a collaboration between the Secretariat for Communication of the Holy See and the TV2000 television station, is hosted by Fr. Marco Pozza, who is also the chaplain of a maximum security prison in Padua, Italy.

The program is broadcast every Wednesday evening at 9 pm, and will consist of nine episodes. An excerpt from an interview with the pontiff introduces each episode of the show. This excerpt will be broadcast on television on November 1.