Peter T. Rohrbach (1) (1926–)

Though St. Teresa never said there is any method to follow in meditation nor in your personal prayer, this is an excellent book with many ideas to try implementing on personal prayer for people who are looking to try different ways that works for them to love God more.

889 The Search for Saint Therese, by Peter-Thomas Rohrbach, O.C.D. (read 14 Jan 1967) This is a not-very-well-written book about St. Therese of the Child Jesus--and I was quite impressed by it. What an amazing phenomenon she was: she did nothing extraordinary, yet lived a most extraordinary life. This book is by a Carmelite, is very eager to rebut the criticisms recently leveled at the cult of St. Therese--a rebuttal I cannot evaluate because I have not read the books he rebuts--but the part show more I found intriguing was the actual life of this French girl, nurtured in old-fashioned French piety, who entered the convent at 15 and died at 24, on Sept 30, 1897, who became such an unusual person, and underwent such an extraordinary road to sainthood. For a year and a half before her death she was tried by loss of faith: I wonder what Daniel Callahan would say: she should have left the Church, instead of praying continually as she did? Very worthwhile reading. show less

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 show more 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. show less

888 Journey to Carith: The Story of the Carmelite Order, by Peter-Thomas Rohrbach, O.C.D. (read 14 Jan 1967) I really liked this book, which is a history of the Carmelite order. If there is a better more accessible history of said order I do not know it.