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Praying with the Body: Bringing the Psalms to Life
Pray with more than just your mind—learn how to use your whole self
In this innovative prayer book, readers are invited to do more than read—they are asked to move in prayer by expressing the Psalms with motion. This way of praying helps deepen and broaden a relationship with God. It allows the pray-er to better come to understand God as “Holy One”—and in other timeless expressions of the psalmists.
In Praying with the Body readers will find both prayer tools and companionship. Black and white drawings showing the postures and expressions of the body, accompany the scripture texts and explanations by Roy DeLeon. Working together, these elements invite readers to taste, explore, and discover a new and different way of knowing God.
This book is for anyone who wants a more integrated and reconciled approach to prayer. It proposes a way of prayer that, depending on your level of readiness, could influence both our interior and daily life. Its meditations and reflections connect readers to their deepest needs to be with the Beloved, to be reassured of the divine presence in our midst. They address hunger and longing for true happiness, for freedom from fear, and for deep peace.
“The four basic ways of praying –oral, mental, affective, and contemplative—are all contained here.” —Father Tom Ryan, author of Prayer of Heart and Body
In this innovative prayer book, readers are invited to do more than read—they are asked to move in prayer by expressing the Psalms with motion. This way of praying helps deepen and broaden a relationship with God. It allows the pray-er to better come to understand God as “Holy One”—and in other timeless expressions of the psalmists.
In Praying with the Body readers will find both prayer tools and companionship. Black and white drawings showing the postures and expressions of the body, accompany the scripture texts and explanations by Roy DeLeon. Working together, these elements invite readers to taste, explore, and discover a new and different way of knowing God.
This book is for anyone who wants a more integrated and reconciled approach to prayer. It proposes a way of prayer that, depending on your level of readiness, could influence both our interior and daily life. Its meditations and reflections connect readers to their deepest needs to be with the Beloved, to be reassured of the divine presence in our midst. They address hunger and longing for true happiness, for freedom from fear, and for deep peace.
“The four basic ways of praying –oral, mental, affective, and contemplative—are all contained here.” —Father Tom Ryan, author of Prayer of Heart and Body
- GenresPrayerSpirituality
150 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2009
2 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 25, 2023
A good book for helping me connect with God when I don’t have the words. When I feel like running away from God, this book uses my body to connect with a different part of my head.
May 12, 2020
I dared myself to do this book during Lent because it is way outside of my comfort zone. Best dare accepted ever. DVD is not necessary but it does add to the practice.
October 14, 2014
Praying with the Body is in the Active Prayer Series from Paraclete Press, a publisher that emphasizes Benedictine spirituality and publishes books from diverse traditions, cultures and centuries.
Christianity is about God's incarnation in the human Jesus of Nazareth.and the goal of living in Christ is to become like him, both fully human and completely divine. People often refer to Christianity as spiritual, though the way of Jesus is heavily economic, highly political and hardly ascetic in its celebration of gifts from the ground, in its perspective that insists on the interdependence of all life, in its historical affirmation of human sexuality and in its charge to care for all creation, the natural environment that surrounds us, envelopes us and that is not incidental but remains integral to God's action in history.
Roy organizes the book into Alleluia, Sanctus and Amen types of prayer sessions. "Alleluias" are about new beginnings. Although intended for the middle of the day or mid-endeavor, "Sanctus" prayer sessions could be adapted to any time of day or year. Somewhat parallel to compline, "Amen" prayer sessions are for the close of day or "at the conclusion of an activity or project, or at a milestone." Each prayer session includes an introit, a section of a psalm. a Silent Reflection, illustrated suggestions for "Praying with the Body, Heart and Soul," Sitting in the Presence (similar to centering prayer), a possible way to live your prayer, an original Contemporary Psalm and concluding prayer.
The margins have plenty of space for the participant's own notes and each discrete session features a pullquote from the psalm one might choose to contemplate or concentrate on--or possibly not at any particular time. Similar to possibilities of praying the canonical hours, although each office has evolved and developed a specific form for a particular time of day, prayers in Praying with the Body can be appropriated for other times than specified. The book includes many line drawings of bodily prayer positions, but those too do not need to be replicated exactly in a person's own practice.
Christianity is about God's incarnation in the human Jesus of Nazareth.and the goal of living in Christ is to become like him, both fully human and completely divine. People often refer to Christianity as spiritual, though the way of Jesus is heavily economic, highly political and hardly ascetic in its celebration of gifts from the ground, in its perspective that insists on the interdependence of all life, in its historical affirmation of human sexuality and in its charge to care for all creation, the natural environment that surrounds us, envelopes us and that is not incidental but remains integral to God's action in history.
Roy organizes the book into Alleluia, Sanctus and Amen types of prayer sessions. "Alleluias" are about new beginnings. Although intended for the middle of the day or mid-endeavor, "Sanctus" prayer sessions could be adapted to any time of day or year. Somewhat parallel to compline, "Amen" prayer sessions are for the close of day or "at the conclusion of an activity or project, or at a milestone." Each prayer session includes an introit, a section of a psalm. a Silent Reflection, illustrated suggestions for "Praying with the Body, Heart and Soul," Sitting in the Presence (similar to centering prayer), a possible way to live your prayer, an original Contemporary Psalm and concluding prayer.
The margins have plenty of space for the participant's own notes and each discrete session features a pullquote from the psalm one might choose to contemplate or concentrate on--or possibly not at any particular time. Similar to possibilities of praying the canonical hours, although each office has evolved and developed a specific form for a particular time of day, prayers in Praying with the Body can be appropriated for other times than specified. The book includes many line drawings of bodily prayer positions, but those too do not need to be replicated exactly in a person's own practice.
November 22, 2014
One of my favorites for retreats.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews