Prayer and the Will of God

Prayer is our lifeline to heaven, but most of us find prayer easy to neglect and even to forget. We tend to avoid it, and sometimes even resist it. Our fitful efforts at regular prayer frustrate and disappoint us.

Dom Hubert van Zeller knows why.

“Prayer,” says this beloved Benedictine monk who taught scores of souls to pray, “comes from God, is kept going by God, and finds its way back to God by its own power.” Prayer is not something we do, but something God does in us.

Which means that all these years, most of us have approached the problem of prayer backward: we’ve struggled to pray instead of working to remove obstacles to prayer from our hearts — obstacles that prevent God from praying in us and through us.

Sound mystical? Perhaps. But living in accordance with this single truth, elaborated in these pages, not only will make regular prayer possible for you; it will transform your prayers into a source of joy.

Here you’ll discover the true meaning and the proper ways of prayer. You’ll learn the secret of prayer from the example of Christ in the Gospels and from the prayers of the saints. You’ll find out how to overcome distractions in prayer and how to deal with disappointment when your prayers seem not to have been answered.

Finally, you’ll learn how to accept God’s will, no matter how puzzling it may seem; and even — yes — to love it.

Never forget that prayer is your lifeline to heaven. These pages will help you grasp it firmly and never let go. What more could you ask of any book?

Dom Hubert van Zeller (1905–1984) lived a life of spiritual adventure and holy renunciation. He was born in Egypt when that nation was a British protectorate, and entered the Benedictine novitiate at age nineteen. His soul thirsted for an austere way of life; at one point he even left the Benedictines to enter a strict Carthusian monastery. However, he soon returned to the Benedictines. A talented sculptor as well as a writer, his artworks adorn churches in Britain and the United States. He was a friend of the great Catholic writers Msgr. Ronald Knox and Evelyn Waugh, and is the author of Holiness: A Guide for Beginners, Holiness for Housewives, and Spirit of Penance, Path to God.