Description:
Finding God through Meditation is the enduring work that St. Teresa of Avila and numerous other saints turned to time and again to rectify their difficulties in prayer. Written by St. Teresa's spiritual director, St. Peter of Alcantara, this book offers profound insights on how to mature and flourish in prayer and proven antidotes to many of the false teachings of our day.
St. Peter shows you how to cultivate a deeper commitment to self-denial and ascetical practices as the path to a richer life of prayer and devotion. He helps even beginners to navigate through -- and then beyond -- the purgative phase of spiritual growth and into the illuminative phase. As a result, you'll be drawn into that most prized form of prayer that transcends your efforts and allows for God's transformative grace to work more fully in your soul.
Here you will learn, as did St. Teresa and so many other saints, the following, and more:
- How to manage your thoughts and guide your mind to silence during prayer
- Four key reasons to avoid any method of prayer that is excessively focused on thought management
- Six things you must do to pray effectively
- What to do when your mind is distracted
- Six things to avoid in meditation
- Nine ways to acquire devotion -- and nine common impediments to it
- What to do when your prayers feel dry
- How to handle negative thoughts during prayer
- Why you should never judge the state of your spiritual life by whether you feel God's presence
Absorb the wisdom in this book, and you'll soon develop a devout prayer life supported by pious exercises that will fill you with an ardent desire to serve and love God.
Brief description:
Dan Burke is the founder and President of the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation (Avila-Institute.org), which offers formation in three seminaries, along with graduate and personal enrichment studies in spiritual theology to priests, deacons, religious, and laity in more than ninety countries and prepares men for seminary in more than a hundred dioceses. He also founded SpiritualDirection.com, the largest website (in English) in the world dedicated to re-proposing Catholic mystical tradition. He is a bestselling author and editor of numerous books on authentic Catholic spirituality and with his wife, Stephanie, hosts the Divine Intimacy podcast, which broadcasts weekly on EWTN Radio. In his deep commitment to the advancement of faithful Catholic spirituality, he is also the founder of Apostoli Viae (ApostoliViae.org), an over four-thousand-member worldwide private association of the faithful dedicated to living, lighting and leading the way to contemplation in the heart