Being a Christian means learning to love with God's love. But God's love is not a warm feeling in the pit of the stomach. It has definite characteristics we learn in the course of our life, in the behavior and teaching of the early monastics, as we ponder over what we can say about God as God deals with us, and finally, as we model our own lives on what we have learned.

Teachings from this fourteenth-century mystic provide spiritual direction and call for you to open yourself, body and soul, to divine love. Many people are familiar with the phrase "All shall be well" but do not know much, if anything, about Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth-century English mystic who wrote those words. Thomas Merton declared her to be “without a doubt one of the most wonderful of all Christian voices,” and former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says that her writings “may well be the most important work of Christian reflection in the English language.” This accessible introduction to Julian's Revelations of Divine Love, an extended reflection on a series of her mystical visions, includes an informative introduction that addresses the historical, cultural and sociological context of Julian’s life and writings. Mary Earle’s facing-page commentary focuses on Julian’s profoundly hopeful vision of humanity and God, her creative imagery and her rigorous honesty about the spiritual life. Drawing directly from Julian’s text, Earle addresses a variety of topics essential to understanding Julian’s mysticism, including the infinite nature of God, the life of prayer, God’s suffering with us, the eternal and undying life of the soul, the motherhood of Jesus and the motherhood of God, “all shall be well” and more. Drawing directly from Julian’s text, the commentary addresses a variety of topics including the infinite nature of God, the life of prayer, God’s suffering with us, the eternal and undying life of the soul, the motherhood of Jesus and the motherhood of God, “all shall be well” and more.

"Prayer is a hard topic for most of us modern folk, and we have little place to talk about it. My own first conversation partners were the great ancient teachers, the Abbas and Ammas of the Egyptian desert...These men and women have been urging me for nearly thirty years to pray and to seek healing for the wounds of my heart I carry from childhood, from my own temperament, from my culture, even the culture of my church. They have also urged me all along to write about what I have learned from them and from my own experience, for, as they tell us, nothing, neither the most wonderful nor the most humiliating thing we are given as Christians, is ever given for ourselves alone...The chapters that follow are in the form of letters to a friend. My intention, of course, is that you, the reader, understand yourself to be the friend to whom I am writing..." --excerpted from the author's Preface

"What a wonderful example of spiritual guidance through letters Out of her own rich experience and struggle and scholarship Roberta Bondi speaks about prayer as one who knows. Those who have a lot of questions about experience of God in everyday life will not want to miss reading In Ordinary Time." --E. Glenn Hinson, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Richmond, Virginia

To Pray and to Love is for all persons who want to pray but do not know how, who pray but feel uncertain about it, and who pray happily but want to grow more deeply. For those who have longing for prayer and yet have never prayed, the author offers some specific suggestions about attitudes, beliefs, and dispositions that get in the way of our prayer without us even noticing. Bondi also shares some of what the founders of early monasticism had to say about prayer and Christian love that she has found especially helpful over the years.