Book Description

A new and updated edition of a much-praised work, this is vital reading for anyone who wishes to understand the nature of prayer. Down-to-earth and accessible, yet applauded for its scholarship, it is, as reviewers said of the first edition, truly exciting to read and full of help and sympathy for the Christian who finds prayer difficult. Company of Voices begins with a problem that is all too recognizable. If all that Christianity claims about life and living is true, then prayer ought to be the most natural activity in the world. Yet apart from moments of crisis when prayer arises spontaneously, it is mostly an added extra to the business of daily living, something that is a struggle to find time for. George Guiver, CR, sets out to find why this should be so. His search takes him to study the practice of daily prayer throughout the church's history: the offering of prayer several times a day in churches, cathedrals and monasteries, and individuals at their private payer. He considers the form and content of prayers handed down over the centuries, prayer and human nature, our understanding of the church, the varying formulas of prayer in different spiritual traditions, symbolism and gesture, prayer as work and play, wordless prayer, and much more--all with the aim of learning from the past for the needs of today. Truly breathtaking in its scope, this important study deserves its reputation as a contemporary spiritual classic.