Prayer & spirituality

A collection of resources and links

An introduction to prayer

• How to Pray (from the ReJesus website)
• Learn to pray: Whether you are a child, young person or an adult, it's easier than you might imagine! Millions of people of every age pray every day.

Prayers

• Invitation to prayer
  First established after 9/11, Invitation to Prayer is a separate Church of England web site providing prayers for peace, justice and reconciliation.
• Daily Prayer
  Today's services for Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer are available to help you find time for God during your day.
• Liturgy
  Services and prayers from The Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship, as well as other associated resources.
• Daily prayer for your MP3 player (from the Pray as you Go website)
• Sacred Space
  A website which invites you to make a 'Sacred Space' in your day and spend ten minutes as you sit at your computer with the help of on-screen guidance and scripture chosen specially every day.
• Prayer Garden

Resources

• View the Prayer Calendar
• View the Committed to Growth Prayer and Children's Prayer

Contemplative spiritualities

• Julian Groups
  These encourage people to practise contemplative prayer in their daily lives, and to explore ways of doing this which are appropriate for them.
  
• Ignatian spirituality
  For Ignatius, the loving God is very active in our lives, seeking to heal us and bring us closer.  He encourages us to enter the gospel scenes with the help of our imaginations and thus get to know Jesus personally as a friend whom we can trust and say anything to.  This enables us to bring him into our ordinary everyday lives today.  Life and prayer become integrated, prayer making more sense of life and life entering into prayer. Ignatian spirituality is a spirituality of service. 
  http://www.jesuit.org.uk/spirituality/ignatianspirituality.htm
  http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/prs/stign/ignatian_spirit.html
  Ignatian retreats aim to develop an understanding and awareness of God while dealing honestly with the failing and drawbacks that hinder such prayer.
  http://www.beunos.com/ignatian.htm
• Lectio Divina
  This is a way we hear the word of God in the scriptures. It is the most ancient method of developing friendship with Christ by using scripture texts as topics of conversation with him.
  
• Norwich Christian Meditation Centre
  The Norwich Christian Meditation Centre is an expression of St Augustine's church, Norwich. Our definition of meditation is ‘the simple enjoyment of truth', a term first coined by Thomas Aquinas. We are a Christ-centred community and our aim is to develop our spirituality within a contemporary context. We understand spirituality as "the cultivation of a sensitive and rewarding relationship with eternal truth and love" (Rowan Williams).