“I say nothing to him, I love him.” Therese of Lisieux summed up her prayer in these few words. How then can we be astonished by the fact that this book devoted to prayer speaks so much about the love relationship? Love... Prayer. Similar reality, similar language.

“I am convinced that we know how to pray spontaneously,” writes the author, “as we know how to love.” Contemplative is an experience within everyone’s reach. This prayer is not complicated. It is only demanding.

The suggested process guides the reader in finding within himself the depths of his heart where prayer wells up, as does the love experience. So that he may learn to enter into it and establish silence there. So that he may be enabled to sense the presence of God beyond the spoken language. So that he may finally remain in full peace before him.

Father Jacques was born at Boucherville in 1952. At the age of 23, after his studies in theology at the University of Montreal, he entered the Cistercian Abbey Notre-Dame de Nazareth at Rougemont, Quebec. He is presently in charge of the orchard and of cider-making. At times, he directs retreats or sessions at the guest house of his monastery.