Prayer Theology

What does it mean to pray without ceasing? Is it really that important to pray as the early Church did? In this installment of The Ancient Practices series, Robert Benson presents a structure for our lives where we can live in continued awareness of God’s presence and reality. A pattern for...

Find solace and wisdom in the Christian tradition of daily prayer. The 40 Transformational Daily Prayers That Will Inspire You helps you understand what prayer is, the different types of prayer, and how you can include this practice in your daily life. With powerful and uplifting language, this book helps you open a channel to God, build a relationship with him, and be transformed by the power of prayer.

Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) - also known as Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face - lived a short life. She died at the age of 24 from consumption - what we now call tuberculosis. However, in her short life, she inspired many nuns in the Carmelite community of Lisieux, Normandy. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and wrote much regarding the path of humility and holiness befitting a Christian.

Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591) was a major reformer of the Carmelite Order. He was canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. What he accomplished in the monasteries paralleled what Saint Theresa of Avila did in the convents. Together, these two saints are considered the founders of the Discalced Carmelites. In fact, the two saints were friends and corresponded regularly.

In the fourth century, a young man named Augustine turned his back on the church, plunging into a frenzied life of lust and dissipation. His renunciation left Monica, his pious Catholic mother, weeping and praying for his salvation...for more than a decade! Like so many Catholics today - even, perhaps, like you - Monica wrestled daily with the pain of having a loved one fall away from the faith. Like us, she often feared that her prayers and tears were of little worth, empty, futile.

"The Pursuit of God" is "a modest attempt to aid God's hungry children so to find Him" by A. W. Tozer. "We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. 'No man can come to me,' said our Lord, 'except the Father which hath sent me draw him,' and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him."