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Addressing God as "Father" is an acknowledgement that God is the one who created, supports and guides humanity, Pope Benedict XVI said. "Maybe people today do not understand the beauty, greatness and deep consolation" that comes from recognizing God as father, "because the paternal figure is not sufficiently present today," the pope said. Addressing an estimated 20,000 people gathered in St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict continued a series of audience talks about prayer in the letters of St. Paul. Focusing on St. Paul's assertion that it is the Holy Spirit that enables people to pray and to address God as "Abba, Father," the pope said, "the absence of one's father or the lack of a father's presence in a child's life today is a big problem that always makes it difficult to understand fully what it means to say that God is our father." From the beginning of Christianity, believers adopted Jesus' form of addressing God as father, especially in the Lord's Prayer, the pope said. "Christianity is not a religion of fear, but of trust and love for the Father who loves us," he said. Pope Benedict acknowledged that "critics of religion have said that speaking of God as 'father' is simply a projection" of our own longings and desires, but the Gospel shows that the opposite is true, because "Christ shows us who the father is and what a true father is, so that we can understand and also learn what true fatherhood is."