Luigi Gioia

Reflections for Daily Prayer continues to be one of the most popular and highly valued daily Bible reading companions. Continuing its tradition of excellence, regular favourites and new contributors offer insightful, informed and inspiring reflections on the scripture readings of the day, based on the Common Worship lectionary for Morning Prayer. David Ford is the guest contributor for Holy Week. New voices this year include Gregory Cameron, the Bishop of St Asaph and author of the popular An Advent Book of Days and An Easter Book of Days; Chine MacDonald, author, broadcaster and Director of the religious think tank Theos; and Emma Parker, Deputy Warden of Cranmer Hall, Durham. For every day (excluding Sundays) of the 2024-25 church year, there are full references and a quotation from the day’s set of Scripture readings, concise and challenging commentary, and a collect. Also included is a simple order for Morning and Night Prayer, and additional helps for nurturing a habit of regular daily prayer.

Luigi Gioia is one of the most insightful commentators on monastic and priestly life today. In The Wisdom of St Benedict he shines the light of monastic spirituality on many aspects of the contemporary Church, offering a refreshing vision of a renewed spirituality for todayâ??s Church.

Monastic spirituality has much to offer Christians who live far beyond monastery walls. In Saint Benedict's Wisdom Luigi Gioia, OSB, demonstrates that monastic spirituality is a gift for the whole Church. Because monastic vows are fundamentally a deep dive into one's baptismal commitments, monastic experience speaks to all the faithful who wish to do the same within different lifestyles. As an expression of divine wisdom, monasticism offers a way of deeply integrating spirituality with the rest of life, teaching us to seek holiness, not only in prayer, but also through work, sharing of food, sleep, and life in community.Written by one of the most insightful commentators on monastic life today, Saint Benedict's Wisdom shines the light of monasticism on many aspects of contemporary Christian living, including evangelization, leadership, suffering, authentic chastity, the experience of God, reform of structures, and the practice of theology. It will appeal to anyone seeking to live a more authentic Christian life in addition to vowed monastics, monastic oblates, and associates.Luigi Gioia, OSB, is a research associate at the Von Hugel Institute for Critical Catholic Inquiry at Cambridge University and a professor of systematic theology at the Pontifical University of Sant'Anselmo in Rome. In great demand as a retreat leader all over the world, he is the author several books, including Say It to God: In Search of Prayer (the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book 2018) and Touched by God: The Way to Contemplative Prayer.

Luigi Gioia's second spiritual book deals with the art of contemplation.Say it to God: In Search of Prayer was chosen as the 2018 Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book and welcomed by many as an honest, accessible guide to freshen their practice of prayer in the midst of busy modern life. In Touched by God, Gioia moves on to explore the art of contemplation. He points out that contemplation is not a more advanced way of praying but a silent and loving attentiveness to God which has nothing in common with disembodied, a historical and impersonal forms of spirituality.Contemplation begins when we are touched by God through Scripture and become aware of his presence in us. Gioia shows how this happens concretely in the lives of the characters of the Gospel of John, his chosen guide to learn how to welcome God in our lives and interact with him. Gioia’s way to contemplation takes the reader not only through Scripture but also through plays and novels where God is never mentioned or is seen as absent, distant or even as an enemy.By engaging with both religious and non-religious authors the reader can discover that contemplation is not some kind of spiritual wonderland but coexists with doubts, thrives in the middle of struggles, is discovered even in suffering, dissolves guilt and leads to authentic self-knowledge and compassion for every human being.

A daily guide to prayer in our everyday lives.In Say it to God Luigi Gioia provides a welcome encouragement to all those who feel the need to freshen their practice of prayer. For Gioia, prayer is not about methods or techniques, but trusting that God is truly interested in everything that happens to us and wants to hear about it. The book leads the reader into the theological aspects of prayer and how it relates to Christ, to the Holy Spirit and to the Church. This is done without using complex theological concepts but simply through scriptural quotations. Chapters are kept brief intentionally to make the book suitable for daily reading over the Lenten period.With a foreword by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Say it to God demonstrates that the everyday, even the most mundane of tasks and situations, can be applied in deepening our practice of prayer.