Prayer is a word we take for granted. Ought we to do so? What do we mean by prayer? What does the word mean in the Christian context? Almost always when we talk about prayer we refer to something we do. From that standpoint, questions problems, confusion, discouragement and illusions multiply. For Burrows it is essential to correct this view. Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. And what God is doing for us is giving us the Divine Self in love. What then is the core of the central message of the revelation of Jesus? It is the unconditional love of God for us, for each one of us. God the unutterable, incomprehensible Mystery, the Reality of all reality, the Life of all Life. And this means that divine Love desires to communicate its Holy Self to us. This is the richness of the vision of a contemplative nun who contradicts the heresy of so much modern writing about the spiritual like- namely that we reach God by running faster. The growing fascination for the public of the contemplative and monastic life is evidence of the profound appeal of this approach. For this there is a real hunger. At its simplest we do no look for success so as to be assured that we do believe. We give ourselves over completely to divine love. Ultimately, we live for God and not for ourselves.

Burns & Oates are proud to reissue Ruth Burrows' critically acclaimed work of spiritual theology, "Guidelines for Mystical Prayer". When first published in 1976, spiritual theology as reflection on spiritual experience was a growing trend; but at the same time there was a new interest in, and a return to, the classical Carmelite theology of prayer, with an effort to formulate that theology in contemporary thought categories. "Guidelines for Mystical Prayer" embodies both tendencies. It offers a personal narrative, a reflection on the spiritual history of two gifted people, St Teresa and St John of the Cross; and yet it speaks clearly out of the Carmelite tradition, and in the language of today. Strong interest in Carmelite theology of prayer and the spiritual life has continued into the present; the recent success of Burrows' "Essence of Prayer" is testament to this.

There is a seismic shift necessary from being religious to being a true disciple. Here is the contemplative's perspective. It is an abiding sorrow to the author that many faithful religious people, even regular church goers, understand so little of the great truths they so sincerely profess to believe, especially among young people. Unless a real love for Jesus is awakened in their hearts, unless they have been helped to see something of the sheer wonder and beauty of the contents of the faith in which they are instructed, how can they withstand the atheism of our materialistic society? There is a vast difference between being religious and faith in God revealed in Jesus Christ. There is an inner disturbance and distress among people today which can be a secret call from the Spirit to go beyond the externals to a purer, deeper faith, to an encounter, mysterious by its very nature, with the living and true God revealed in Jesus Christ. What seems so very simple is in fact shatteringly profound. This is the contemplative's genius.