Peter T. Rohrbach (1) (1926–)

Conversation with Christ is a guide to the style of meditative prayer favored by Saint Teresa of Avila. One should note that unlike Eastern-style mediation, which is what most people think of these days when they hear "meditation", Western-style meditation does not involve emptying one's mind but rather filling it. The goal is to have a conversation with Christ (hence the title) and there are five basic steps to the process: the preparation, selection, consideration, conversation, and conclusion. Basically, the practitioner prepares himself for prayer, selects a passage to meditate upon (such as the story of the crucifixion or another passage from the Bible), then forms a mental image of the passage and meditates upon it. This in turn leads into a conversation with Christ about the consideration, before bringing the prayer to an end. The author gives a step-by-step introduction on how to achieve mastery of this style as well as two alternative variants. He also discusses things that can make meditation difficult (distraction and aridities) as well as things that can aid mediation (recollection, detachment, and spiritual reading). It's an incredibly useful book for anyone who has wanted to try mental prayer but did not know where to start.

Highly recommended for anyone who has considered meditation or has heard their priest mention it and wondered what the fuss was about.… (mer)