JourneyOnline
By Benignus O’Rourke,
Darton Longman & Todd, 2010
RRP $27.95
Reviewed by Sandra Jebb, a minister with Kairos Uniting Church who is drawn to the practice of silent prayer.
AUTHOR BENIGNUS O’Rourke shares with us a way of connecting with God through silent prayer that has been lost down the centuries or at best well hidden.
Finding Your Hidden Treasure is for anyone who wants to improve his or her prayer life and get a fresh understanding of prayer.
It is also a refreshing book for all of us who have struggled with prayer.
Mr O’Rourke suggests that if we have become tired of asking God in words that have no life in them and tired of saying prayers that are not bringing us closer to God, then this path of silent prayer may offer us a way to develop a deeper communion with God.
He draws on the writings of Saint Augustine, Thomas Merton and Henry Nouwen as well as stories from everyday life experiences.
Each chapter is short, but packed with insight.
It would be ideal as a devotional.
Mr O’Rourke is clear that our search for inner harmony, for closer connection to God, is not something we seek selfishly but is a gift we share with others.
Our goal is to take God’s love to others in our everyday life.
As Martin Laird says in the foreward, if you are looking for a book on silent prayer that is eloquent in its simplicity, perceptive in the issues addressed, and offering comfort in the presence of a God closer to us than we are to ourselves, then this book is for you.
