TO celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Cardinal Carlo Martini of Milan visited Ireland, addressing impressive ecumenical gatherings in Belfast and Drogheda.

Media interest in the visit was unconcealed, journalists and photographers jostling to meet the man whose reputation as a spiritual leader assures him a capacity audience when he meets with his people once a month in the huge cathedral, to lead them in their search for the deeper meaning of life.

The common hope that draws together agnostics and believers, the disillusioned and the searchers is that this man and the tradition he represents can still, somehow, offer answers to life's problems and an approach to the fullness of life to which they aspire.

What did the vast assembly of Irish Christians who awaited the cardinal's address in Drogheda expect to find? Expectations varied no doubt, but what they found was a humble scholarly man, with a rare power of speaking directly to the heart. The subject of his address was the Church's ancient practice of "Lectio Divina", being rediscovered by the church at large, in our own time, as a powerful means of personal and community development. It is a prayerful reading and meditation of scripture that is grounded in life, both personal and collective.

It has become the chief instrument of a comprehensive pastoral plan for the cardinal's own diocese. His experience has convinced him that the fragmentation and anonymity, characteristic of so much of modern living in vast urban agglomerations, need not be an impenetrable barrier to the divine.

On the contrary, it can become a positive factor in the creation of, an inner emptiness, to be filled by a new Word of Life.

Cardinal Martini's personal journey took him directly from biblical research to pastoral charge of the throbbing diocese of Milan. To use his own imagery, Jerome the biblical scholar became in him first the reluctant Jonah, trembling at the sight of the "great city", before he was ready to reconcile the scholarly, prophetic and institutional charisms needed for his new role as bishop, and embodied for him in the towering figure of Gregory the Great.

Cardinal Martini listens deeply to the voices of many people and teaches them to do the same. In this process, spiritual monologues become dialogue and can progress to inclusive, trusting conversation and celebration of the divine presence in the whole of humanity.