To Dare the Our Father: A Transformative Spiritual Practice

The Lord’s Prayer accompanies the lives of Christians. When we are happy or sad, when we eagerly wait for a child to be born or silently keep watch as an elder dies, alone in the woods or together in liturgy, filled with gratitude or emptied by grief, driven to praise or dragged to repent, the Our Father finds its way to our lips.

To Dare the Our Father recognizes and respects these experiences but it envisions praying the prayer as a more sustained and challenging undertaking. How does praying the Our Father inform our thinking, feeling, willing, and acting? How does it become for us a transformative spiritual practice? John Shea explores these questions and more to discover what it looks like to become people of prayer.

John (Jack) Shea is a consultant with decades of experience in providing theological and formation services to parishes and faith-based organizations. He has published over twenty books of theology and spirituality (including Liturgical Press’s popular Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels series), three novels, and three books of poetry. He lectures nationally and internationally on storytelling in world religions, faith-based health care, contemporary spirituality, and the spirit work movement. Visit jackshea.org to learn more.