To learn and understand the Our Father and Hail Mary is to learn the deepest contours of the Church's interior life, for both are prayers that come from the Holy Spirit, who is the soul of the Church.

At once meditative and catechetical, The Heart of Catholic Prayer dissects the two anchors of our faith line by line in a journey into the Church's deep tradition of prayer, drawing us more deeply into the heart of the mystery of God's love. It's no coincidence the Our Father and the Hail Mary are closely intertwined in the heart of the Church.

Mark Shea expertly weaves the contemporary with the historical and the theological with the practical as he opens up these most common of prayers with a fresh and penetrating perspective for all to see. Mere rote recitation of the Our Father and Hail Mary, without knowing what they mean, and why we say them, threatens to characterize God as a kind of cosmic vending machine demanding correct change.

Experience the ordinary truths of the Faith that the Church has always taught, but in ways which will generate a spark of recognition in the contemporary mind. Upon completion of this book, you will never recite either of these prayers in the same way again.