If we call upon them while listening to the Lord’s Prayer, we will find our guardian angels very ready to help. It may be some time since we have thought of, not to mention called upon, our guardian angel. For many the guardian angel is something that perhaps belongs to childhood, a charming, comforting fantasy, helpful in putting infants to sleep. We don’t think of them as awakeners. Or as, a familiar prayer to the guardian angel has it, beings... Read more

You are the instrument to be tuned. Each phrase of the Lord’s Prayer strikes as a tuning fork, calling us to resonate with the creative Word as it sounds within. The prayer is bringing finer impressions to us, and it asks us to be penetrated by and receptive to this utterly new and unfamiliar realm. The Lord’s Prayer is the Word of God, a clear, pure, Word, unlike the words you are reading, unlike any other word, anywhere. This Word... Read more

To listen is an act of love. It is not love that creates listening, but listening that creates love. Or rather reveals it. When we truly listen, the deep relationship that already exists begins to emerge. We accept that stillness and silence are states that elude us. The difficulties in coming to such states are familiar to all. Trouble begins when our mind tells the body to sit still. The body’s wish to move creates anxiety, which we try to... Read more

Once we embark on the practice of the Lord’s Prayer as the foundation of Christian contemplation we soon see that the prayer is a mirror. We sense at once that while Christ in his prayer is calling us to the presence of the Divine, we are unable to fully respond. We begin to be aware of assumptions, hidden attitudes, and expectations that have gone unnoticed for years. We began reciting the prayer as young children, and those childish impressions often... Read more

Fifty years ago Karl Rahner, S.J., wrote that “The Christian of the future will be a mystic. Or he will be nothing at all.” Many Christians sense that Rahner is correct: that something is missing in their spiritual lives; that there is a need for greater depth and feeling. A question appears. A mystic? How? Read more