Contemplative Prayer:
A New Framework

Author Dom David Foster
Publisher Bloomsbury/Continuum
£12.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9781408187104

This is a thoughtful, rewarding book which explores a way of prayer where an awareness of God’s presence is cultivated through stillness and silence. Foster approaches his subject philosophically. The book contains short readings of Nietzsche and Heidegger, both of whom, in their different ways, grappled with the subjectivity of human experience and how the individual faces their own frailty and vulnerability. Both philosophers sought to answer the subjectivity of human existence without the resources of traditional faith. In contrast, Foster argues, contemplative prayer makes us aware of our limitations and subjectivity in the light of God. Prayer which is a deep listening to God rather than, say, a talking to God, brings us to a place of threshold and limit; a place of creative mystery where we wait upon God’s initiative instead of our own.

Foster also draws on Wittgenstein, in considering prayer; a philosopher who highlighted the provisional and limited nature of language and indicated the places where language must give way to silence. Foster is good at drawing out the ways contemplative prayer can inform our lives. Prayer which practices a listening to God enriches our capacity to listen to others. A prayer which restrains our own wills and emotions and thoughts allows us to deepen habits of selflessness as we follow Christ. This book will help anyone who wishes to develop ways of prayer built around a loving listening to God in silence.

BEN BROWN

Prayer, Philosophy