Favourite prayers and Prayer Books
...some Prayer books and Resources that you might find useful…..
A favourite Prayer
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.I do not see the road ahead of me.I cannot know for certain where it will end.Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.But I believe that the desire to please you, does in fact please you.And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.Therefore will I trust in you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. † † †
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Prayers of Life by Micheal Quoist (Gill & MacMillan, 1971) A classic that will be known to many people.This collection of prayers and reflections marks many of life’s milestones, and many of life’s situations.It is a wide ranging and powerfully moving collection of writing.Probably not well suited to daily use, it is the kind of book I delve into when words fail and no other source seems to quite do the job.It is deeply contemplative and profound without seeming to be so.It is difficult to imagine that this little book would not deeply move everyone except for someone spiritually dead.The thing I most enjoy about it is that it shows humanity as an asset and not a liability.It is powerfully grounded in the everyday. Jamie Miller, Obl. OSB, Corpus Christi , 2009
Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim by Edward Hays (Ave Maria Press, 2008 - front cover at right). This book is a personal Manual for prayer and Ritual and I love it for its language and its unique ways of addressing God.The prayers and rituals in this book call me out of a parochial way of praying into a way that is truly global and which more accurately reflects the world I inhabit.My experience of using this book both for personal prayer and as a basis for corporate prayers is that it provides a pattern for prayer, a model if you like, that calls me to expand my religious and spiritual boundaries to embrace a larger and wider world, and to embrace a more expansive spirituality. Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim contains new and freshly creative morning and evening prayers for each of the four seasons of the year.It has rituals for the Planetary Pilgrim, prayers for before and after praying, Psalms for the Seasons, Psalms for the sacred seasons, Psalms and prayers for personal Seasons of change and to mark major life transitions. Jamie Miller, Obl. OSB, Corpus Christi , 2009
Prayer at Day's Dawning (and Prayer at Day's Ending), by Jim Cotter ( Cairns Publications, 2001).
Personal Manual for Prayer and Ritual by Edward Hays (Forest of Peace Publishing, KS, 1989)
Holy Ground – Liturgies and Worship Resources for an engaged spirituality by Neil Paynter & Helen Boothroyd (Wild Goose Publications, Glasgow, 2005 - front cover right)
Australian Psalms by Bruce Prewer (Lutheran Publishing, Adelaide, 1979) Prewer has had a long and successful career as a Uniting Church minister.This book is a beautiful collection of psalms and free verse which has the capacity to anchor our prayer life in the culture and environments of Australian life.The psalms Prewer has written urge us to remain present to our Creator and Redeemer in an Australian context.This book has enriched my personal meditations with deep insights into contemporary life.On more than one occasion I have used Prewer’s material in a group setting. Jamie Miller, Obl. OSB, Corpus Christi , 2009
Prayers for the Domestic Church – A Handbook for Worship in the Home by Edward Hays (Ave Maria Press, 2007 - front cover left) This book is companion to Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim.This book is truly a handbook for worship in the home and within the family.In the very early Church it was parents and family elders who were the prototype priests.Sacredness encircled the home and rituals marked important events and milestones.Families and neighbours gathered for the holy meal that remembered the death and resurrection of Jesus. The challenge of the 21st century is for us all to rededicate and revitalise our homes and work places as places where prayers and rituals can transform our world and which have the potential to remind us of our membership in the world-wide Church of God . The prayers and rituals in this little book seem to me to have the potential to reawaken the priestly role of mothers and fathers and family elders, and the sacredness of the family homes and work places.My own family have used and continue to use a number of the rituals included here. Jamie Miller, Obl. OSB, Corpus Christi , 2009
A Wee Worship Group by the Wild Goose Worship Group (Wild Goose Publications, Glasgow, 1999)
Reaching out without Dumbing-Down – a theology of Worship for this Urgent Time by Marva Dawn (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995 - front cover left).
A Royal ‘Waste’ of time by Marva Dawn (Eerdmans Publishing, 1999) - An edited extract from whch appears in the July 2009 edition of the Melbourne Anglican (page 16).
Iona Abbey Worship Book by the Iona Community (Wild Goose Publications, Glasgow , 2005)
Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community by Northumbria Community (Harper, San Francisco, 1989)
A Common Prayer – a Cartoonist talks to God by Micheal Leunig (Collins Dove, 1990).
Celtic prayers from Iona, by J Philip Newell (Paulist Press, 1997 - front cover right).
Prayers for Anglicans by David Adam (Kevin Mayhew, Suffolk , 2008).
Tides and Seasons – Modern Prayers in the Celtic Tradition by David Adam (Triangle, London, 1989).
Daily Services - Morning and Evening Prayer - from a Prayer Book for Australia (Broughton Publishing).
A Book of Hours, by Thomas Merton & Kathleen Deignan (Sorin Books, 2007 - front cover right).
The Celtic Vision by Esther de Waal (Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 1988). While working in the late 1800s as a British civil servant in Scotland ’s remote Hebridean Islands , Andrew Carmichael set himself the project in his spare time of collecting the Celtic chants and repetitive prayers still in use amongthe residents of those scattered islands. He published them under the title Carmina Gadelica (‘Gaelic Chants’). A century later, the prominent scholar of Celtic Christianity Esther de Waal put out an edited anthology called The Celtic Vision, making these verses very accessible, useable, and inviting the reader to adapt them daily. It is a lovely volume of authentic prayers to work with, in much the same way as David Adam’s books have done. Hedley Beare, 2009
Lost in Wonder - Rediscovering the Spiritual Art of Attentiveness, by Esther De Waal (Liturgical Press, 2003 - front cover left).
Return to Calling Melbourne2Prayer main page