A guide to prayer that swims against the current

Prayer in the Catholic Tradition
edited by Robert J Wicks, Franciscan Media , £31

The latter half of the 20th century saw the ascendancy of buzzwords, handmaidens of fads and fashions. Sometimes perfectly good old words were co-opted for new ends. One such word is “spirituality”, which was often employed as a safe word by those seeking to be spiritual but not religious.

For a Catholic, spirituality is properly seen as centred in God and lived in the Church, incorporating all that gives life to our faith and impels us deeper in faith and in our service of God and neighbour. An integral and essential element of this is prayer, and this handbook seeks to serve as a practical compendium of the vibrant Catholic tradition of prayer.