The St. Teresa of Avila Prayer Book

Part One is a primer of St Teresa. After a mini-biography to show us the person behind the famous works, it is hoped that readers would then find Teresa a bit more familiar with so as to pray alongside. In Part Two, we follow after Teresa's rhythm of morning and evening prayers. This rhythm was developed as Teresa was reflecting on the Letters of St. Jerome and later, St. Augustine's Confessions. The discipline in the book is core to cultivating an intentional prayer life. This is the single biggest reason to read this book. Use it well and we can be more intentional in our prayer life. Perhaps, the more we establish a prayer routine in our lives, the more we learn to see beyond techniques, beyond people's needs, and beyond our everyday concerns. We begin to see more theological truths, God's purposes, and why there is more hope in God, even when the world around us is spinning away in utter oblivion. Rating: 4.5 stars of 5.

The first part of the book is biographical but fun, not dry. St Teresa's prayers in her own words are beautiful. The most distinguishing feature of this book is the alignment of St Teresa's prayers with a liturgy of the hours type format with morning and evening prayers. Virginia Wright helps us to see and pray with St. Teresa stating, ‘Ultimately, what St. Teresa of Avila brings to us is confidence in God’s great mercy toward us and God’s willingness to meet us in our flawed humanity and dwell with us right here and now.’ I would recommend this book to you to understand St. Teresa of Avila better and deepen your prayer life. The author makes St. Teresa approachable, understandable and a prayer partner which is definitely a plus. I like that there are themes and structure provided for prayer and inspiration from St. Teresa of Avila.

Teresa of Avila was a 16th century Carmelite nun, mystic, and reformer of convent life. Today she is a canonized saint and doctor of the church. She regularly experienced visions and ecstasies. But do her teachings have anything to offer those of us whose spirituality is in the realm of the more ordinary? Author Vinita Hampton Wright says, ‘Yes!’ She unfolds Teresa’s legacy of practical wisdom and doable approach to prayer, and very subtly disabuses readers of thinking otherwise. After a helpful introduction to prayer as Teresa practiced it, the core and bulk of this book is a guide to daily and weekly prayer following the pattern of the divine office. For each of the hours, Wright includes a text from Teresa’s own writings, brief passages from scripture, pauses for reflection, and some written prayers. Teresa said that just as there are differing ways to water a garden, there are various ways to pray—one of them as simple as reciting the Lord’s Prayer. The book’s arrangement reflects this, offering ample flexibility for adapting any of its components to whatever form best serves the user’s preference or need: meditation, contemplation, or wordless or oral prayer. The author provides enough background information to capture the aura of Teresa: her basic biography, her understanding of prayer, what shaped her spiritual life, and her advice on praying. Teresa lived at a time when the figure of ‘the devil’ was commonly used as the personification of evil. Hence, frequent mentions in this book of ‘his’ attempts to sabotage prayer should not be off-putting to readers. They may reword such passages using more contemporary expressions, with no loss of meaning. Simple, concise, minimalist: This little guide should serve any person serious about engaging in a disciplined prayer life.