Books for Spiritual Growth and Exploration

Some classics, some obscure titles, some for beginners, some for those
advanced in prayer: all tried and true guides

“The voice of God reaches us through words spoken by
good people, through listening to spiritual talks,
and through reading.”
~Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle

Books were—even more than the regular church attendance and Sunday School that shaped my childhood—really my first guides in a life of faith. Some books I found on my parents’ shelves, some in bookstores, some in libraries. Some were given to me, some seemed almost to fall into my hands—the way C.S. Lewis discovered the George MacDonald Phantases that was to change his life and “baptize his imagination” in a used book stall at a railway station when he was a young man.

And of course books themselves lead us to other books.

My own reading of books to illumine my mind and heart and prayer has ever been eclectic as a consequence of that wandering kind of early formation. I might have been reading the Quaker wisdom of Thomas Kelly at the same time I was absorbing the Trappist monastic experience of Thomas Merton; the writings of medieval mystics and contemporary activists might share a long plane ride with me; the poetry of Rumi and the Rule of Saint Benedict may both be found in the tumbled basket-full of books that lives beside my morning-prayer chair.

But for the sake of an almost artificial seeming coherence in these lists of my own most-admired and best-beloved literary companions along the Way, I have divided the titles into categories for easier browsing.

You might want to dip into these lists by choosing a familiar tradition—or even an unfamiliar one—as a starting point to see what companions and guides are attracting you now.

Or of course you might want to explore several offerings at once—or simply use these title to refresh your memory of the books that have been your own guides.

In any event, I hope some of these books can be good company on your own journey, and light unto your feet.

Just getting started on the adventure of a praying life? Here are some good foundational books to get you on your way:

In my own life, C.S. Lewis has been an unparalleled guide since I was a child. I discovered the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, from a boxed set of the paperback Puffin edition of the books my mother brought back from a trip to England, when they were not yet available in the States. As I have written often elsewhere, meeting Aslan and the Pevensie children and coming to love Narnia and its creatures changed my life in profound ways, “disposing my heart” to the truth of the Gospel before I had any idea of religion.

Lewis remains an incomparable—intelligent, shrewd, witty, erudite, cheerful—defender of the faith and apostle to the skeptics.

I especially recommend Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (also his imaginative works, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, the Chronicles of Narnia, Till We Have Faces, the “space” trilogy Perelandra, Out of the Silent Planet, That Hideous Strength).

If C.S. Lewis is my literary father in the faith, Evelyn Underhill is my mother. She introduced me to—and invited me to join her in—the great adventure of the life of prayer.

The Spiritual Life by Evelyn Underhill (also The Mystics of the Church, The Life of the Spirit, etc.); see also the invaluable Fragments from an Inner Life: The Notebooks of Evelyn Underhill edited by Dana Greene

A contemporary of Evelyn Underhill, though living in very different circumstances in a very different part of London, Edith Herman is another wise voice on the spiritual life from more than a century ago. Her classic little book Creative Prayer was reissued by Paraclete Press some twenty years ago; that’s a good edition if you can find one used.

Here are some other titles of interest for Christian faith and spirituality:

All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time compiled with commentary by Robert Ellsberg (son of Daniel Ellsberg, the activist who released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, precipitating a public crisis of confidence about the war in Vietnam) includes both historical giants of the faith and contemporary witnesses like Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr. and Oscar Romero. A great addition to any library of daily devotional works.

My husband has kept In the Light of Christ: Writings in the Western Tradition by Lucy Beckett on his morning reading pile of books for many years: a compendium of implicit Christ-light from many pre- and non-Christian writers.

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection was an uneducated lay brother who worked in the kitchen of a Carmelite monastery in 17th century Paris. His little book, The Practice of the Presence of God has become a beloved classic; his gift for “finding God among the pots and pans” has encouraged many a weary young mother to pray at home, I suspect: it certainly encouraged me.

Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s letters to a community of French nuns, written three hundred years ago but still among the most powerful of classics on Christian life, has been translated and published as both The Sacrament of the Present Moment and Abandonment to Divine Providence. Both titles reveal his essential—and at the time dangerously close to heretical—theology: that every moment of our lives is a sacrament, and that surrendering in joyful trust to that gift and the One who gives it the secret to a consecrated life for anyone. This book is one of the ones that change my own sense of God at an almost cellular level.

As an introduction to the specifically Christian practice of contemplation, I know of nothing better or more practical or more inviting than these three books (best read in this order) by the American Augustinian priest and college professor Martin Laird (who certainly has a gift for choosing lyrical and evocative titles): Into the Silent Land, A Sunlit Absence and An Ocean of Light.

A visually lovely and wise exploration of meditative silence is Pico Iyer’s The Art of Stillness.

The long, wide and deep Christian tradition is wonderfully rich and varied in its tributaries and branches: the desert mothers and fathers of 4th century Egypt, Benedictine, Carmelite and Cistercian monasticism, Jesuit activism, Quaker wisdom, the Anglican “middle way,” Celtic spirituality, the fiery evangelism of the Protestant heritage. It can be daunting to navigate all these riches without a map, however. Here are some titles to give you a taste of different ways of believing and praying, some specific to certain monastic traditions and different denominational traditions.

Benedictine

Crossing: Reclaiming the Landscape of Our Lives by English Benedictine monk Mark Barrett (one of the monks featured in the remarkable BBC series Monastery) reflects on the shape of a monastic day. He reveals the hours of the divine office—from pre-dawn Vigils to the night prayer of Compline—as the very landscape of our lives, from reluctance and weariness (when we can only “want to want to pray”) through Lauds and mid-day prayer to Vespers to our daily surrender to the coming night as a reminder of how to live our days. Witty, erudite, candid and absorbing, this book is unparalleled as a way to see all the days of our lives as the landscape where God waits to be found.

To discover or explore the specifically Benedictine form of monastic spirituality—for us non-monastics—you might want to read either or both of these now classic guides to the Rule of Saint Benedict as practical wisdom for the rest of us, and as suggesting the gift of occasional monastic retreats for Protestants and even agnostics and skeptics:

Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict was written by Esther de Waal, an Anglican laywoman, wife and mother. She points out that the Rule was originally a pragmatic plan to order a Christian household’s daily life, as useful for those of us in the world as for monks and nuns; a wonderful introduction to Benedictine wisdom for me as a young wife and mother.

The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris was the book that first opened my eyes to the transforming power of monastic retreats, with their ancient healing rhythm of silence and sung prayer, work and rest—to enrich almost anyone’s inner life and journey of faith.

The Path of Life by the Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey in England Cyprian Smith, is a clear and sensible guide to the Rule and monastic prayer for monks and non-monastics as well.

Sister Joan Chittister (a personal hero of mine, a fierce advocate for both deep prayer and social justice) has written many books. Some of my favorites are The Monastery of the Heart and The Time Is Now: A Call to Uncommon Courage.

Brother David Steindl-Rast OSB is the author of Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, which has recently been reissued; a classic for good reason. 

Ignatian

Ignatian spirituality, as expressed in the “Spiritual Exercises” of the 16th century Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) engages Scripture, imagination, memory and the person of Jesus in powerful ways (which have certainly been formative for me). Here are just a few introductory guides to that tradition—since, by the way, it’s not usually a good idea to plunge right into the Exercises yourself: Ignatius wrote that as a guide to directors. It would be like trying to learn to fly by reading a textbook on aerodynamics.

I do think the best way to experience the richness of the Exercises is to make the retreat in daily life with the guidance of a skilled director, but if that isn’t possible for some reason, Moment by Moment: A Retreat in Everyday Life by Carol Ann Smith and Eugene Merz is a good introduction in a workbook format to Ignatian prayer by two experienced guides.

Margaret Silf’s Inner Compass: An Invitation to Ignatian Spirituality is superb; it’s recently been reissued in a new and expanded edition.

The Conversational Word of God: A Commentary on the Doctrine of St. Ignatius of Loyola concerning Spiritual Conversation by Thomas Clancy SJ is a brilliant little book about the mysterious power of really listening to another person. Sometimes, the canny evangelist Ignatius knew, we fish with a line, not a net: engaging with another person in deep respectful conversation (mostly by listening, not talking) is a model not only for Christian witness but for anyone engaged in social work or family dynamics or challenging relationship or pastoral ministry—anything that requires the discipline of holy listening. This has been out of print for ages: please, some editor out there, reprint it!

God’s Secret Agents: Queen Elizabeth’s Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot by Alice Hogge is a real-life political thriller, meticulously researched and well-written by a historian who is herself descended from a devout Catholic family. Hogge traces the period of violent anti-Catholic persecution in late 16th and early 17th century England through the lives of such heroic young Jesuit priests as Edmund Campion, John Gerard and Henry Garnet and the brave Catholics who illegally sheltered them.

Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits compiled and edited by Michael Harter SJ is a glorious pocket-size collection of Jesuit prayers. 

In Good Company: The Fast Track from the Corporate World to Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience by James Martin SJ tells, as the subtitle makes clear, of his own conversion to deep faith and his discovery of a Jesuit vocation. In addition to that candid, fascinating and disarming spiritual autobiography, Father Martin also wrote the popular Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life. 

Trappist

America’s most famous monk, Thomas Merton, was a Trappist (of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, OCSO, named for La Trappe, the founding monastery in Normandy, France; the more relaxed original Cistercian order takes its name from its founding monastery, Cîteaux—Latin Cistercium—also French, in Burgundy: got that??). Merton in his later years was embarrassed by his youthful ardent spiritual autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, but it remains a classic in that genre. And his later work is excellent food for thought and prayer: Seeds of Contemplation, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander and A Vow of Conversation: Journals 1964–1965 are just a few titles.

The moving story of the martyred Trappist monks of Tibhirine in Algeria was told in the achingly beautiful film Of Gods and Men; you can read about them and that turbulent moment in history in The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love and Terror in Algeria by John Kiser.

Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk of St. Benedict’s Abbey in Snowmass, Colorado, was the founder of the Centering Prayer movement; his book Open Mind, Open Heart is a classic that was life-changing (and mind and heart opening) for me.

Sister Miriam Pollard is a Trappistine nun who is also a remarkable poet and theologian; her little book The Listening God is a treasure. I wish some publisher would reissue it; it’s presently out of print but worth hunting up a used copy if you can find one. It’s a series of brief, quiet, humorous, relaxed, candid, unassuming meditations on finding God in the most ordinary times and places. Deceptively simple, deeply wise, this is a lovely book to dip in and out of, a perfect addition to a practice of daily devotional reading.  Her book The Other Face of Love: Dialogues with the Prison Experience of Albert Speer is perhaps the most powerful and unsettling theological work I have ever read on what Sister Miriam calls “the exalted, hard and shocking thing” that is the mercy of God.

Carthusian

For a glimpse into an even more rigorously ascetic life than the Trappists’—the life of the ancient order of the Carthusians (whose 11th century life lived in a remote valley of France in the 20th century was immortalized in the documentary film Into Great Silence)—An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and their Trial of Faith in the Western World’s Most Austere Monastic Order by Nancy Klein Maguire is riveting (and to me, frankly, disturbing).

Carmelite

Carmelite spirituality, exemplified and explained by the great Spanish mystics Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint John of the Cross, and the French “little flower” Thérèse of Lisieux, is powerful indeed, but can be bewildering and off-putting if one ventures without a guide into the Interior Castle or the mystical poetry of Saint John. These books are good as maps and compasses to start the journey—and are wise and worthwhile in their own right:

The Interior Castle Explored: St Teresa’s teaching on the Life of Deep Union with God by Ruth Burrows OCD. More than an excellent contemporary commentary on the famous 16th century mystic’s seminal work, this small book is a gem in itself, witty and insightful.

The Impact of God: Soundings from St John of the Cross by Iain Mathew OCD is not only the best guide to Saint John of the Cross I know, but a masterpiece on prayer as intimate union with God. I reread it, very slowly, every few years.

The Context of Holiness: Psychological and Spiritual Reflections on the Life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux by Marc Foley OCD is both a good corrective to the more hagiographic books on “the little flower” and a shrewd and compassionate exploration of the way what seem to be obstacles to our relationship with God are in fact the very ground of our transformation.

Eastern Orthodox

For those of us (and we are many) who are drawn to the beauty of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, that too can be daunting without what Evelyn Underhill called “a guide who knows the mountain.” Here are some of the best introductions not only to that venerable church but also to prayer for the rest of us:

Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray, was not only my own introduction to Orthodoxy, but one of the first books I ever read on prayer. It opened a whole world to me.

Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church, is another classic, a clear introduction to non-Orthodox as well as Orthodox believers who want to know more about their own tradition. 

The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality by Kyriacos Markides blends the author’s inner and outer journeys as he explores the complex realities of life in Cyprus.

Both of Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy and O Death, Where Is Thy Sting? are monumental works of theology and also engaging reads.

The anonymous The Way of the Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way remains a classic for the history and practice of the Jesus Prayer (and was the little green-bound book that so unsettled Franny Glass, as recounted in J.D. Salinger’s famous Franny and Zooey which is itself a great introduction both to the prayer and the delightful Glass family if you haven’t met them before).

A Place of Healing for the Soul: Patmos by Peter France, the popular BBC radio host of The Living World and Everyman, is part travelogue, part memoir, part introduction to Greek Orthodox faith and culture. France arrived on the holy ancient island of Patmos a skeptic and ended up Orthodox, and staying on the island for good. Erudite, self-deprecatingly witty and disarmingly honest, this is a charming story of conversion and an ode to the eccentric islanders who became his friends and guides.

Quaker

A Testament of Devotion, by the American Quaker Thomas Kelly, I first read decades ago, and would still run to rescue from a burning building. One of the finest invitations to a life with God I have ever found. Radiant in its faith and beautiful prose.

Richard Foster is another American Quaker with a wide and generous vision of the Christian life—his Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth was formative for a whole generation of Christians of all denominations.

John Woolman was one of the foremost Quaker abolitionists and thinkers in the 18th century; his Journal, published after his death, is a classic of American spirituality; it has never been out of print. The journal chronicles the growth of his anti-slavery views (as a young merchant he was once required to make out a bill of sale for a slave) and his lifelong conviction that Christianity was a religion of peace and light and truth.

Douglas Steere is another luminous American Quaker: his thoughtful essays have been gathered into Gleanings: A Random Harvest, which is a treasure.

Roman Catholic

In terms of other Catholic books on prayer and Christian life, Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest and prolific writer, has written many books as memoirs and as introductions and guides to the Christian life. These are some that have meant a lot to me: ¡Gracias!: A Latin American Journal; The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society; The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming; Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring.

Jean Vanier established L’Arche (the Ark), a series of homes for disabled persons in Europe and around the world. He mentored and inspired Henri Nouwen, and has inspired many to compassionate activism on behalf of some of the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized people. His book Becoming Human is an extended meditation on the process of maturing in the spiritual life, of growing in compassion, in finding healing for our woundedness—most of his wisdom on this subject Vanier claims he learned from the people with intellectual disabilities among whom he lived for so long. 

The inimitable and incomparable Brian Doyle wrote a great deal in his too-short life: essays, novels, prose poems, all in a rollicking style all his own: you can’t go wrong choosing among them, but some of my own favorites include the A Book of Uncommon Prayer; Eight Whopping Lies and Other Stories of Bruised Grace; The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be: Prose Prayers and Cheerful Chants Against the Dark; and the charming novel Martin Marten.

Paula Huston is a wife, mother and grandmother, and a Camaldolese Benedictine oblate, who has written extensively on the spiritual life and its disciplines. Her book One Ordinary Sunday: A Meditation on the Mystery of the Mass is part memoir, part exploration of the liturgy; a good introduction to Catholic practice and worship; an excellent gift for new Catholics.

Some Contemporary Anglican sources

Simply Jesus and The Crown and the Fire: Meditations on the Cross and the Life of the Spirit are among the best titles by the prolific N.T. Wright.

The Crucifixion and The Undoing of Death by Fleming Rutledge, also Advent and The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien’s Divine Design in the Lord of the Rings are extraordinary. I cannot overpraise these books. I don’t know any other writer who combines such depth of learning with such an engaging and persuasive style.

To Love as God Loves by Roberta Bondi is the one of the best introductions to and distillations of the wisdom of the desert that I have found. As is Mary Earle’s The Desert Mothers: Spiritual Practices from the Women of the Wilderness.

Celebration by Margaret Spufford is the paradoxical title of an extraordinary memoir of suffering and faith, and the presence of God in the midst of pain. Mary Earle’s Broken Body, Healing Spirit: Lectio Divina and Living with Illness is also part memoir and part clear-eyed look at the ways that chronic pain and illness can themselves be the ground of a deepening faith

Unapologetic by Francis Spufford (Margaret Spufford’s son) is remarkable and completely different: a memoir of his own conversion from prickly atheism to prickly faith.

Protestant/Evangelical

And some of my favorite titles from Protestant and Evangelical authors:

Belden Lane is a Presbyterian pastor and theologian whose books The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality and Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality explore the way spending time in apparently harsh landscapes can both reflect and heal our own inner brokenness. Lane combines mystical theology with personal reflection as well as any writer I know.

Walter Brueggemann is an exemplary American Protestant theologian, especially steeped in the tradition of Old Testament prophets. He is also wonderfully bracing, occasionally fiercely prophetic himself, a tonic and a guide for our time. I especially recommend A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent and Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now.

Eugene Peterson was a wise and prolific pastor, writer and guide: his Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity and The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction were formative for me, and Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ is a winsome invitation to deepening faith.

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voscamp is a contemporary memoir (occasionally overwrought in its prose but unimpeachable in its premise) that chronicles the healing, saving power of a discipline of gratitude in the most ordinary times and places.

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler is part dark and searing memoir of a personal recovery from the implicit falsehoods of the “prosperity gospel” and part a no-nonsense account of learning to find deeper and more authentic Christian ways to deal (as she did as a young mother) with a diagnosis of Stage IV cancer. I’ve also included this with books about dealing with illness, but her candid critique of the lie that “everything happens for a reason” merits its place here as well.

Frederick Dale Bruner’s Matthew: A Commentary is a massive (two volume) and impressive work of evangelical Biblical theology; also one of the few commentaries that can actually move me to tears, so great and passionate is Bruner’s faith.

Celtic

The motherlode—the original treasure house of Celtic blessings, prayers, and songs—is the Carmina Gadelica (the hymns of the Gael), compiled between 1860 and his death in 1909 by the Scottish folklorist and civil servant Alexander Carmichael in his exhaustive (and doubtless exhausting) travels in his work as an “exciseman” (tax collector) throughout the remote areas of the Scottish Highlands and Hebrides islands. First published in six volumes in Gaelic and English, an English-only one-volume edition was published in 1992. It remains the best source for this priceless material, the legacy of countless generations of the oral tradition in the original Gaelic.

All things Celtic have become fashionable and highly marketable lately—everything from t-shirts and jewelry to decoupage charms and candles and coloring books. A lot of currently-available books on “Celtic spirituality” contain dubious translations and even more dubious assumptions about pre-Christian Druid theology and magic; many reflect more new-age spin than fidelity to any historical record or authentic oral tradition; others are explicitly occult Wiccan books of charms.

Even some of the books on Celtic spirituality from an ostensibly Christian perspective seem predicated more on the really unknowable pre-historic, pre-Christian past of the aboriginal Celts, and designed to appeal to the “spiritual but not religious” reader.

Some of the best (least new-age-y) guides to the specifically Christian (and wonderfully rich) Celtic tradition are:

Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community, grounded in the monastic contemplative tradition of the early Celtic saints (Columba of Iona, Aidan and Cuthbert of Lindisfarne) and the ancient rhythms of the divine office.

Mary Earle’s Celtic Christian Spirituality: Essential Writings – with Introduction and commentary is a superb gathering of primary sources, presented on facing pages with her commentary. Mary (an Episcopal priest and poet) has included both classics from the traditions and prayers and poems from contemporary Wales, Ireland, and the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Her introduction alone is worth the price of the book, reflecting years of thoughtful scholarship and personal experience, and her selection is unparalleled. One of my favorites, a prayer-poem in praise of a refrigerator’s ability to keep fresh the gifts of the earth, the pasture and mill and wine vat by an Anglican Welsh priest, is a lovely example of Celtic emphasis on the sacredness of the ordinary.

The Celtic Way of Prayer: The Recovery of the Religious Imagination by Esther De Waal explores the ways in which Celtic spirituality was founded on early monastic liturgy and can refresh and reinvigorate our own prayer and worship.

John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom is lyrical, charming, and wise. O’Donohue was both a classically-trained theologian and an Irish bard-poet, and this book (anam cara means “soul friend” in Gaelic) will befriend your own understanding of holiness and beauty.

Literary Recommendations for All Sorts of Times and States of Mind