Close to the Heart: A Guide to Personal Prayer

by Margaret Silf

A real-life approach to prayer Sharing her own life-changing prayer experiences as well as those of others, Margaret Silf invites us to embark on our own adventure in prayer, with promises that we will not be disappointed. In Close to the Heart, she introduces a world of imaginative yet simple ways to approach personal prayer, tempting us to search for “clues to the kingdom” in everyday life. This experiential book, Silf explains, “starts where people really are and encourages them to discover God in their real lives—in the agony and the ecstasy, the glorious and the mundane.”
Breaking through boundaries and stereotypes, Margaret Silf shows prayer as a journey into reflective living. This comprehensive guide helps readers experience prayer as a natural, organic process and offers a powerful vision of what personal prayer can be.
“This is an excellent book on prayer and its relationship to every aspect of life. Writing of ordinary things in simple, lucid prose, . . . the author helps us glimpse God, seamlessly woven into earthy experience.”
—gerard w. hughes, s.j.
“[Silf] has a great gift. . . . She never skirts real life, with its questions, fears, doubts, and desires. She doesn’t clean anything up and make it ‘spiritual and holy,’ for she sees all of life as spiritual and holy.”
—janet schaeffler, Office for Religious Education, Archdiocese of Detroit

Genres: Spirituality

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Jana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very accessible primer for prayer in the Ignatian tradition....finding God in all things.

[Mary Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaret Silf is one of my favorite writers of spiritual life. She is meaningful, yet down to earth, specific and understandable. In this book she explores different ways to approach personal prayer. She focuses on one's prayer life as a "journey" that will lead us to oneness with God.
This book had sections that were a bit challenging for me and other parts that were very enlightening. It is a book that I will definitely re-read, as I have done with most tof her books.

[Rosanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It gave me something to think about each night while falling asleep. I hope to put some of her suggestions for prayer into practice. I liked the idea that this book conveys that prayer is not something that has to be formal. It was great to read for Lent.

[Jay Dewey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Prayer is important to me. The opening pages suggested that here was going to be some real gold -- however as it progressed it fell deeper into Roman Catholic talk, perhaps suitable to RC types, but pure blather to those of us outside that idiom.

[Jack Kooyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully instructive and useful book to help enhance one's understanding and experience of prayer.