Saint Teresa of Avila's meditative approach of focusing on "the favor which God bestowed upon us by giving us His only Son" can be viewed as the basis of most scriptural rosary meditations. In his 2002 encyclical "Rosarium Virginis Mariae", Pope John Paul II placed the rosary at the very center of Christian spirituality. Emphasizing that the final goal of Christian life is to be transformed, or "transfigured", into Christ he stated that the rosary helps believers come closer to Christ by contemplating Christ. He stated that the rosary unites us with Mary's own prayer, who, in the presence of God, prays with us and for us. and stated that: ""To recite the rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.""