The Archbishop of Canterbury has challenged Christians to reflect upon the cross and its true meaning this Lent.

In an address during his visit to the Vatican over the weekend, Dr Rowan Williams said that faith was regarded by some Christians as a “leisure activity”.

He alluded to the difference between the “religion” manufactured in “religion factories”, and a sincere awareness of the “love and service of the true God”.

“We can so very easily fill up the space in our minds or in our prayers with the picture of God that keeps us happy, drawn from our own preferences, our own ideals, what makes us safe and comfortable,” he said.

“We can use that to plug the gap – we can produce something, we can make religion. And instead of the mystery, the terror, the beauty and the freedom of the true God, we draw out something from inside us, project it onto the screen of heaven, and fall down and worship it: the ‘religion factory’.”

The Archbishop challenged Christians to reflect again on the suffering love of God revealed through Jesus Christ, urging them to place greater emphasis on the true meaning of the cross than the trappings of religion that make us “feel good”.

“Because in spite of all this, Christians have been quite good at religion factories in their day, and the cross itself has become a religious decoration – not a call to renewal of life, not a call to a new world, but another thing that religious people make and hang onto,” he said.

The Archbishop suggested that Christians use Lent as a time to be “surprised” by the cross again.

“[We need to be] brought up once again, starkly, against the reality of what the cross means: God in Jesus Christ, overturning all that we think about success and security, all that we think even about ‘religion’ as a nice leisure activity.

“Calling us away from the religion factory into faith; calling us into trust in that unbreakable, undefeatable love, the kind of trust that will motivate us day after day to go in service of the poorest and the most unsuccessful and the most forgotten people.”

Following a private meeting, Dr Williams and Pope Benedict XVI led evening prayer together at the Church of San Gregorio Magno al Celio on Saturday evening as part of the Archbishop’s visit to Rome.

The Archbishop is in Rome at the invitation of the Camaldolese monastic family, which is celebrating its 1,000th anniversary.