CBB Review: Julie reviews Talking to God – Prayers for Catholic Women

Calm and peaceful – that is how I felt while reading Julie Cragon’s newest book, Talking to God: Prayers for Catholic Women. Throughout the day, I do not realize how tight I am or how I hold my breath until I pray and then I feel the tension slide off my body and my breathing slows and deepens.  Truly, as I read through the prayers in this book, one after the other, I caught myself feeling joy and peace.  Mind you, none of the situations in my life had changed, but the reminders from the author that “God’s got this,” settled me down.

The author desires for us to convert “daily encounters into lifesaving prayer” because it changes us.  “This way of living faith in daily life can only be sustained, however, if we nourish our relationship with God through periods of formal prayer. “ And this book was designed to include “a timely prayer for every need of your life.”  It would appear that she is answering Pope Francis’ call in his 2013 document The Joy of the Gospel when he urges all Christians to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ.  To encounter Christ personally, we must take the cares of our person and talk to him.  Spending time with God in prayer allows us to get personal with Him.

As Catholics, we know many prayers that we can say from memory.  However, unless we meditate on the words we are saying we may not feel as if that is “personal” enough.  Julie Cragon addresses this particular issue by including not only the standard prayers we know, but by creating prayers to help us deal with the death of loved ones, the stresses of life, infertility, getting rid of bad habits, etc.  She takes a situation, for example dealing with an “empty nest,” and after writing a few lines explaining why this may be something we need talk to God about, she then includes a possible prayer.  Some of the issues covered in this book are parenting, health, marriage, work, personal virtues and vices, death, etc. – all things we each have to deal with in life and the point of this book is that we should turn to God in all things, good and bad. Really, He is the only one who comes to our aid.  He is the creator of all that is good and He loves us unconditionally.

This is a great book to carry with you throughout your day.  If we are able to schedule our day appropriately we can create time dedicated just for God.  But, while that is great and we should do that, sometimes we don’t – for whatever reason.  Carrying this book with you will allow you to snatch some prayer time during those moments when you find yourself pondering one of your life issues that could definitely use God’s help or praise.  You could just turn to that topic in Julie Cragon’s book and allow her tenderly-worded prayers to lift you up and calm you down.

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