Living Prayer: A Book of Hours for Cultivating Life

Alison M. Benders serves as vice president for the division of mission and ministry at Santa Clara University. Prior to this role, she served for seven years as the associate and interim dean of the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. Her most recent book, Recollecting America's Original Sin: A Pilgrimage of Race and Grace (Liturgical Press, 2022), offers a reflective immersion into our nation's history of racial injustice through personal and theological lenses. She also authored Just Prayer: A Book of Hours forPeacemakers and Justice Seekers (Liturgical Press, 2015).
 
Lisa Fullam is professor emerita of moral theology at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, and associate veterinarian at the New Baltimore Animal Hospital in West Coxsackie, New York. She has co-edited with Charles E. Curran four volumes in the Readings in Moral Theology series (Paulist Press). She is also the author of The Virtue of Humility: A ThomisticApologetic.
 
Gina Hens-Piazza is the Joseph S. Alemany Professor of Biblical Studies at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She received her PhD from Union Theological Seminary in NYC and recently served as one of the editors for and a contributor to The New Jerome BiblicalCommentary for the Twentieth First Century (Bloomsbury Press, 2022). A past president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America, Hens-Piazza is a frequent lecturer nationally and internationally. She is the author of Lamentations in the Wisdom Commentary series (Liturgical Press, 2017).

"Living Prayer compiled with years of reflection, prayer and search for justice by the authors is an active commitment to live out Laudato Si’ and join the restorative mission of God’s ecology."
Pedro Walpole, SJ, Apu Palamguwan Cultural Education Center, Bukidnon, Philippines
 
"This thoughtfully composed prayer book offers spiritual grounding for both personal care for creation and environmental ministries. In these pages one finds a fervent call to pray with all of creation so that stewardship of the earth growths from a spiritual depth that is expressed through one’s entire self, body and soul. This Book of Hours with its four-week cycle of prayer is the perfect companion to the spiritual call of Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si', and invites its readers into a living and deepening relationship with all creatures that inhabit this planet we share, our common home."
Darleen Pryds, Associate Professor of Spirituality and History, Franciscan School of Theology
 
"This refreshed approach to the Liturgy of the Hours weaves ancient Christian wisdom with contemporary eco-spirituality proposed by the encyclical Laudato Sí. Living Prayer invites us to pray more deeply on our journey of ecological conversion. Scripture, ethics, and practical theology guide the four weeks, each with a creation theme. This text provides an awe-filled poetic interpretation of a traditional prayer practice, re-imagined to cultivate interiority in an era of ecological crises. It will inspire your personal prayer life, small Christian communities, public liturgies and retreats. It bears seeds of Christian hope and inspires us to greater care for God’s creation."
Keith Douglass Warner, OFM, Director of the Franciscan renewal project, Franciscan School of Theology, University of San Diego
 
"Living Prayer is an inspiring resource for deepening the ecological conversion called for by Laudato Sí. Offering a four-week cycle of Morning and Evening prayer, Living Prayer invites those who pray to celebrate the magnificence of creation as well as to acknowledge the ruptures and alienation that estrange us from its beauty and wholeness. In this turbulent time of human and climate suffering, Living Prayer engages participants in the interior work of renewal in Christ that can support their call to become 'servant-cultivators in the cosmic garden.' Highly recommended for personal and communal prayer!"
Mary E. McGann, RSCJ, Adjunct Associate Professor of Liturgical Studies, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, Berkeley, California
 

"This collection would serve as a valuable resource for ecclesial ministers, especially as they plan events, prayer services, and retreats oriented toward care for our common home."
Theological Studies