In a talk given shortly before his death, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton remarked that prayer is a matter of discovering what we already have and experiencing what we already possess. It is a reassuring comment, especially for those who struggle with prayer because they believe they need to master techniques or reach some kind of mindless, disembodied realm of higher consciousness by tearing themselves away from the concrete world.

A similar reassurance breathes throughout Luigi Gioia’s Touched by God: The Way to Contemplative Prayer.