Revised and expanded with a preface by Archbishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor'
The raising of the heart and mind to God'. This traditional definition of prayer sums up what should be a regular activity for all of us. As we say at every Mass 'It is right to give him thanks and praise'. Prayer is, first of all, acknowledging God's call and responding to Him in humility. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states in a wonderful quote from St Thérèse of Lisieux: For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy, (CCC 2558).
I warmly welcome this new edition of a Catholic Prayer Book which draws on a rich treasury of prayer spanning the writings of the Old Testament and the Fathers of the Church through to some of the great saints of the Middle Ages and more recent times. I am sure that it will be a great help to all who seek to enter more deeply into the life of prayer, which is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him, (CCC 2560).
- Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor