In giving us his Son, the Father has given us the very mystery of prayer, of the possibility of praying — that is, of entering into real communion with him. Prayer, in its deepest core, is nothing other than our welcoming of this desire of God to be with each of us personally, to give us himself, to make us participants in his life.
In preparation for the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025, the Exploring Prayer series delves into various dimensions of prayer in the Christian life. These brief, accessible books can help you learn to dialogue with God and rediscover the beauty of trusting in the Lord with humility and joy.
Pages | 112 |
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Copyright | 2024 |
ISBN | 978-1-63966-278-4 |
Item | T2941 |
Saints are people of authentic prayer, and authentic prayer inflames with a fire of love. Only in this way is it possible to lift the world and bring it near to the heart of God. To pray in truth, we must present ourselves before God with the open wounds of our smallness and our sin, allowing our encounter with God be one of liberation and redemption.
The saints whose writings on prayer and meditation are explored in this book are among the most celebrated in the great spiritual tradition. The aim of this book is to discover what help the great saints can offer those of us who desire to make progress in the life of prayer but who find ourselves being constantly deflected from our purpose, our tentative efforts undermined perhaps most of all by human weakness.
What characterizes, in a singular way, Jesus's teaching on prayer is the recourse to parables. Jesus did not invent a new system for praying. Jesus was not a hermit, a Buddhist monk, or a yogi. He instead chose the daily life of his people to teach prayer with parables. This book explores the parables in the Gospels explicitly related to prayer, with Jesus as your guide.
The Our Father was taught by Christ to his Apostles and took shape in the experience of the early Church, and it has been seen as the synthesis of the whole gospel. The Prayer Jesus Taught Us identifies the theological-biblical structure underlying the Lord's Prayer and situates it in the living environment of the early Church. This book examines the antecedents in Mark, the systematic presentation of Matthew, Paul's push forward, the accentuation of Luke, and the mature synthesis found in John.