John Main reintroduced the lost practice of contemplative prayer to the church in the West. In what was a radical departure 40 years ago, he formed a new kind of Benedictine community to which lay people came to learn the art of meditative prayer. This, like his other bestselling books, is made up of the simple and inviting talks he gave to many hundreds of groups right up until his death in 1982. Today, through the worldwide network he founded (the World Community for Christian Meditation) people in all walks of life are discovering the transformative power of being silent before God. The prayer of silence is 'pure prayer' where we lay aside our own agendas, the words and notions by which we confine and limit God, and we allow God's mysterious and silent presence within us to become not only a reality, but the reality that gives meaning shape and purpose to everything we do, everything we are.

John Main became a Benedictine monk after diplomatic service in the Far East and teaching law at Trinity College, Dublin. He founded an open Benedictine community in Montreal from which spiritual family linked through the practice of daily prayer, www.wccm.org