Thirsting for Prayer (Scepter Publishers)

If you look at the religious section of any bookstore, you will find hundreds of books on prayer. Some are very short, and some rival Moby Dick in terms of length. With all these books on prayer, why would we need anymore? Fr. Jacques Philippe asks this very question at the beginning of his latest book Thirsting for Prayer. His answer was that he "recently felt impelled to write this present book, in the hope that it could help certain people to persevere along the path of personal prayer or to start out on it." I'm not sure about you, but I certainly am the intended audience for this book. The book is divided into five parts:

• What is at Stake in Prayer?
• Conditions for Prayer to be Fruitful
• The Presence of God
• Practical Advice for Personal Prayer
• Prayer of Intercession

Though all of the parts were interesting in their own regard, the one that I enjoyed the most was "Practical Advice for Personal Prayer." It starts out by explaining that "we cannot unite ourselves to God in times of prayer if we are not seeking to be united to him in all our other activities." Fr. Philippe next instructs to pray at a particular time of the day to establish a rhythm. Other helpful advice is given including properly starting and ending of prayer, the body of prayer, meditating on Scripture, the Rosary, and the Jesus Prayer. This was a very useful section, but I just wish more information had been given on both the Jesus Prayer and the Rosary as these can both be useful "tools" in our prayer life, when prayed correctly.

Overall, this was a very good book on prayer. If you have never read Fr. Philippe's books before, this is a good one to start with. Why? It is brief, but powerful.. There are not a lot of chapters, and to make reading even easier, the chapters are sub-divided into smaller manageable bites of information. I wouldn't say that this is the only book that you ever need to read on prayer, but I would definitely say it deserves to be on your shelf of books on prayer and would definitely recommend it. Be sure to check out other books by Fr. Philippe (also available from Scepter Publishers), like Interior Freedom or The Way of Trust and Love.

This book was provided to me for free by Scepter Publishers in exchange for an honest review. If you found this book helpful, please click here and hit Yes!