Every Eye Beholds You: A World Treasury of Prayer [Hardcover]

Thomas J. Craughwell (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 26, 1999

Representing the sweep of global religious tradition, this is a book to turn to for solace and wisdom, inspiration and comfort. A rich and accessible anthology assembled from the traditions of many cultures and spanning thousands of years, Every Eye Beholds You ranges across the world to offer the riches of the spirit in all its glory. Here are prayers of consolation and celebration, prayers for help and protection, rites of passage, blessings on human endeavors, and hymns. Here are prayers of praise and awe, prayers to holy beings, prayers of the day and the seasons. The essential prayers of all major religions are included in their original languages as well as in English. "The Lord's Prayer," for example, is reproduced in Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and both the Catholic and Protestant English versions. Vedic hymns, St. Clare's canticle of poverty, the Islamic Call to Prayer, Tibetan chants, and many more paths to the divine are represented. Including an introduction by Karen Armstrong, author of the bestselling A History of God, this is a book to savor, a vital collection for all readers interested in the divine and in mankind.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Editor Thomas Craughwell (A History of God) has assembled a collection of prayers, hymns, and simple blessings from all walks and all beliefs, including Native Americans, Hindus, African tribal groups, and Christians. Although the images of God may change from writer to writer or religion to religion, the essence of these prayers remains surprisingly similar. Words of humility, praise, and glory and impassioned pleas for hope cross over all religious and ethnic lines.

"In prayer, we learn to acknowledge our vulnerabilities, our frailty, our failures, and our sins," writes Armstrong. "By putting out unutterable weaknesses into words, we make them more real to ourselves but also make them more manageable." Armstrong has organized chapters into prayers for various occasions, such as "Prayers for Help and Protection," "Rites of Passage," "Prayers for Prosperity," and "Blessings on the Earth and Its People." She also has an index for religious traditions and one of first lines, making this a thoroughly helpful resource for special occasions, public gatherings, or simply for the inevitable dark nights of the soul. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly

Craughwell, a consultant to Sophia Institute Press and a contributor to Commonweal magazine, presents a collection of prayers from the world's religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, indigenous American and African religions and ancient faiths. Craughwell has organized the prayers into chapters according to their general purpose or occasion, for example, "Prayers of Yearning for the Divine," "Prayers of War and Peace" and "Blessings on the Earth and Its People." Each prayer appears under its name or title (e.g., the Lord's Prayer), followed by a sentence or paragraph of comment on it or its author. Many prayers, especially Jewish, ancient Christian and Islamic, appear both in English and their original language, whether Latin, Arabic, Hebrew or Greek, transliterated into the modern Roman alphabet. Small black-and-white drawings by Christopher Russell accompany many prayers. This collection is a fine resource for anyone genuinely interested in the nature of prayer or seeking insight into the human impulse to worship, though it is a book for browsing rather than for reading straight through. At the close of the volume, the prayers are indexed by religious tradition and first line. Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God, has provided a helpful introduction. BOMC, QPB main selections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (October 26, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151004838
• ISBN-13: 978-0151004836
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,876,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After four years in a doctoral program studying medieval English literature, three years as a copywriter for Book-of-the-Month Club, and one year as a marketing director for a pricey, upscale travel company, I went into business for myself as a full-time writer in 1992. (Yeah. I can't believe the business has stayed afloat this long either).
As a writer, I really don't specialize; my resume is all over the map. I developed the concept and wrote the script for History Book Club's first television commercial. I've written direct mail for Time-Life Books, TV Guide, The Reader's Digest, Hilton Hotels, and the American Banking Association. I wrote the original Barnes & Noble web site; a series of online e-learning business, finance, and banking courses for the New York Institute of Finance; and a special "History of the Paperback" web site to celebrate Quality Paperback Book Club's 25th anniversary. My 50 States Fandex cards (Workman Publishing, 1998) have sold 700,000 copies (!). And I've published articles in a variety of newspapers and magazines--from The Wall Street Journal to Emmy magazine to the national Catholic news weekly Our Sunday Visitor.
My first book, Every Eye Beholds You: A World Treasury of Prayer (Harcourt Brace, 1999), was a Main Selection of both Book-of-the-Month Club and Quality Paperback Book Club. My book on patron saints, Saints for Every Occasion (Stampley Enterprises, 2001) has been translated into Spanish, Italian, and Polish.
I'm not a professional talking head, but I've been invited to discuss saints, the canonization process, and Catholic history on CNN, EWTN, Ave Maria Radio; and urban legends on the BBC, The Discovery Channel, Inside Edition, and approximately 75 radio stations.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All paths lead to the same source., January 3, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (Miami, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Every Eye Beholds You: A World Treasury of Prayer (Paperback)

If you accept what William Blake said, that all religions are one, then you should have no problem accepting that all prayers seek to accomplish the same goal: communication with the divine. For me, there is no distinction between monks singing a Gregorian chant and a group of individuals in saffron robes chanting Hare Krishna. Both strive to evoke God's presence, although they choose to address God by different names. If people realized that there is essentially no distinction between religions, except the names chosen to address God and different messengers teaching the paths to enlightenment, the world would be a better place.

My one critique on this book is that it contains a disproportionate number of Christian prayers. Personally, I would have preferred it to be a little more balanced.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Praying with every heart, June 16, 2003

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Every Eye Beholds You: A World Treasury of Prayer (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful collection of prayer, which I use on a regular basis to bring in fresh and refreshing prayer forms into the standard Sunday service.

The book's title comes from a prayer offered up by Akhenaten, the monotheistic Egyptian pharaoh who might be described as one of the world's early ecumenicists (although, as a historian, I can argue strongly against that, too).

The book is divided functionally (something that I as a service-constructor appreciate) -- Prayers for Days and Seasons, Prayers of Contrition and Atonement, Prayers of Praise, Rites of Passage, etc. Within each functional category, there are examples from many different religions and time periods. There are indexes both by religious traditions and by first lines of prayers. There is a brief pronunciation guide for those prayers included in their native tongues, and a brief introduction by Karen Armstrong. 'To expect to have faith before embarking on the disciplines of the spiritual life is like putting the cart before the horse. In all the great traditions, prophets, sages, and mystics spend very little time telling their disciples what they ought to believe. Indeed, it is only since the Enlightenment that faith has been defined as intellectual submission to a creed. Hitherto, faith had been seen as a virtue rather than a prerequisite.'

Prayer and meditation, including silence and reflection, has been an integral part of all spiritual practices and almost every religion in history. They all seem to reach for similar things ultimately, even if the particulars are different.

'These teach us that our words cannot define God or the divine mystery, no matter how eloquent our prayer. They can serve only as springboards to the sacred, helping us to open ourselves to the deeper currents of existence and thus to live more intensely and fully.'

In the first section of prayer, entitled Essential Prayers we are given the text of those prayers considered essential by various religions, including the Sh'ma Yisra'el, the Lord's Prayer, the Azan Call to Prayer, Hindu and Buddhist mantras, Native American prayers, Simple Gifts (an essential Shaker prayer), Ein Keilo-heinu (Sephardic Jewish daily prayer), Mayan texts from the Popol Vuh, and Psalm 23.

Other chapters are equally rich in given word to the unspoken mysteries that have been pondered by people everywhere in every time. Masterful scripturally-based prayers are combined with brilliant original prayers; traditional prayers rest side-by-side with modern prayers; the similar cries to God can be seen in the unity-in-diversity that is the role of humanity before the divine.

Sit nomine Domini benedictum,
Ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum,
Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini,
Qui fecit coelum et terram.