Customer Reviews

Daily Prayers for Busy People

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Daily Prayers for Busy People has just 30 days of prayers, but you won't be bored on even the 10th time around. The combination of simple and sophisticated, stimulating and soothing, makes this the one book that I always take along with me. O'Malley has the ability to touch the soul with just a few words

I have used this book for three years. I am back to purchase an additional copy for my 18 year old daughter. I would like to buy it for all of my close family and friends-but won't until they ask! What is remarkable about O'Malley's book is the pertinence of the prayers, and the excellent selection of timeless poetry ( English majors- here's Donne, herbert, Pound, Tennyson, Dickinson, truly remarkable selections- artlessly placed throughout the month. Coupled with his own paraphrases of the psalms and a very direct personal and yet intelligent conversation with God- he usually gets me started by saying to God precisely what I was about to say myself, and lets me move on from there. The dailiness of it helps to form you. The book consists of a month's worth of prayers, three per day- each a short series of prayers, psalms and a selection from literature. Intended to be used in place of or the same way as a breviary. Everyone zI know who's used it, lives with it.

This volume has a well-deserved sequel. Fr. O'Malley has developed a prayer book with a four week cycle which speaks to contemporary Catholics to whom the psalms and patristic readings are "dead". This is not an adaptation of the Liturgy of the Hours; rather it is a substitute. Morning and Evening prayer have a simple structure: an opening prayer, a "grace" or single sentence to carry with you outside the formal prayer time, a psalm expanded to include a variety of Biblical poetry, a hymn which is usually poetry from the last three or four centuries, and a closing prayer. Mid-day prayer is the longest adding a prose reading and a Scriptural reading to the format.

Representative authors of hymns and readings include: Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Donne, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Graham Greene, John Masefield, e.e. cummings, John Milton, Thomas Merton, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Dag Hammarskjold, T. S. Eliot, Eleanor Farjeon, William Shakespeare, Elinor Wylie ...

If you have not found the Liturgy of the Hours prayerful, consider this volume as an alternative. It is an excellent volume.

This little book has been my companion off and on for over 15 years. I have given away more copies than I can count. O'Malley is not only a poet, but a playful and wise man who knows what it is to have one's pretensions shattered. Perhaps some of this comes from the years he has spent teaching youth at Fordham Prep School. He is a master of simplicity; just a few words, a few lines, make a prayer that can stay with one all day, or all week, or for a life. To see an example of his playful and wise spirit, turn to his original "parable" re- the "big black dog that gallumphs" beside him on his walk, p. 120.

I recommend this to anyone who wants to pray but feels there is not enough hours in the day to do so. The book title pretty much says it all. The readings are very short. I think it is an excellent book to begin out on, but if you're like me, you will begin desiring more and may need to move to a larger prayer book.

I've had this little gem for years and recently bought it for my grown daughter. It's a wonderful way to spend a few moments in quiet contemplation of God and His place in our every day comings and goings. I don't read it every day, but when I do, I never fail to take something of value with me for the rest of the day.