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The 15-Minute Prayer Solution: How One Percent of Your Day Can Transform Your Life
Gary Jansen
It may seem like a “cop-out” to only pray for 15 minutes a day, but when you lead a busy life or are starting out in the spiritual life, 15 minutes is perfect. We can all find 15 minutes. I heartily recommend getting a copy of The 15-Minute Prayer Solution: How One Percent of Your Day Can Transform Your Life if you are struggling to find time for prayer on a regular basis. Jansen has a writing style that is accessible to anyone. He writes about deep theological truths in a way that a person who has zero years of religious education can understand. Much of what he writes is from experience and he gives many short stories to explain how prayer has affected his own life. Jansen provides detailed instructions on how to pray for 15 minutes based on ancient practices, many of which were inspired by St. Ignatius of Loyola.
God, Help Me: How to Grow in Prayer
Jim Beckman
For most of my life prayer was simply “going through the motions” and stayed at the surface. Several years ago I read dozens of book on prayer, but very few taught me how to pray with both mind and soul. I struggled to go deeper in prayer and truly encounter God. Providentially, I was given Jim Beckman’s book God, Help Me: How to Grow in Prayer, and it opened up a whole new kind of prayer for me. This book helped me tremendously and taught me how to pray not only with words, but most importantly with the heart. It is by far one of the best books I have read on prayer.
Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart
Father Jacques Philippe
One of the most necessary skills to have in the spiritual life is the ability to discern who is speaking to us in the depths of our soul. Without this skill we run the risk of following a voice that leads us away from God to a place of eternal loneliness and despair. Father Philippe explains how to test the voice/decision and to see if it creates peace or anxiety in our hearts. This is a vital part of discerning God’s will every day, especially when it comes to discerning our vocation in life. Above all, Father Philippe’s book is an excellent meditation on the action of God in our soul and how to maintain that peace of heart we all desire.
Church Militant Field Manual: Special Forces Training for the Life in Christ
Father Richard Heilman
Father Heilman writes in an accessible style that is aimed at the average Catholic in the pew. It is a worthy addition to any library, especially for those interested in mastering the art of spiritual combat. The Church Militant Field Manual is a great tool in the fight to restore our culture, precisely because it emphasizes the role of personal holiness and combatting the forces of evil through prayer, penance and sacrifice.