The Need and the Blessing of Prayer

I read this for class. Most of it I read twice. I am not going to do a full post on it. I am mixed. There are some good things here. Contextually, these were sermons given at the end of WWII in Germany before the real relief effort at the end of the war started and so the discussion of prayer in that context adds to the interest of the book.

That being said, this is mystical, and frankly, mystical books that are trying to speak of divine things with human language. And that is often difficult to process. Many individual phrases or sections are helpful. Many other things that are difficult to understand what he is getting at.

Part of the reality of prayer is that we can spend a lot of time talking about it and not much time doing it. And he ends the books with this line, “In the final analysis, talking about prayer doesn't matter, rather, only the worlds that we ourselves say to God.”

I am glad I read it. I need to write a short paper about it. I am mixed about whether I recommend it or not. In some ways, I might recommend this paper by Egan about Rahner instead https://www.theway.org.uk/back/522egan.pdf