The most important progress you will make as each year rolls in and rolls out is spiritual. So don’t forget your soul in 2025 as you make a list of goals like losing weight or landing a new career.
And you can look no further for a solid spiritual guide than The Book of Prayer and Meditation by Venerable Louis of Granada. This Spanish masterpiece, first published in 1554, now comes to us in a readable form courtesy of TAN. It’s a beautiful hardbound volume with an attractive, clear typeset, and with the added help of a satin ribbon to help mark your place in the text.
The fourteen meditations (in the second half of the book) are introduced by Granada with some sage spiritual advice and an exploration of the five parts of Christian prayer. Only then is the reader ready to delve into profound meditations upon such things as the life and death of Our Lord, the hardships of man’s life, and death and final judgment. They are divided up into day and night meditations, and for each day of the week.
This book is very profound; it’s not a light devotional that a housewife can pick up each day for 5 or 10 minutes. With 456 pages, this hefty tome can keep your heart and soul occupied throughout the entire year. The translation of Granada’s work has echoes of the King James Bible, so a slower pacing will be required of the modern reader. Consider this beautiful meditation in which sin is vanquished by compassion:
“If a man be enticed with gluttony, and delicious fare, if he be allured with the desire
to lie in a soft bed, and to lead a delicate and wanton life, he lifteth up his eyes, and
considereth the bitter gall, and vinegar, which that fountain of life,
our sweet Savior Christ, drank upon the cross, and also the hard bed of the cross,
whereupon He died, and the painful and austere troublesome life which He led for our sakes.”
On Sale Now
The Book of Prayer and Meditation by Venerable Louis of Granada is on sale for a special discounted price right now at TAN books, who generously sent me the copy that was reviewed today.
They also have a Stocking Stuff Sale with an assortment of books for $1 and $4 and $7. It’s a great place to get your Christmas shopping done and enrich the lives of those you love!
Hope your Advent has been wonderful so far!
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