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Recently retired from her position as a philosophy professor at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts, Celia Wolf-Devine has written of her conversion from the Episcopal Church to Roman Catholicism in the book The New Catholics edited by Dan O'Neill for Crossroad Publishing House. Her prayerful familiarity with Catholic authors and her use of their various approaches to life and prayer is enhanced by her contacts with those outside the Church who are searching for the faith which she has found and enthusiastically embraced. All will benefit from her practical and effective approach to the transformation of the heart through the prayer of desire into that for which God made it.
Reviews
Every Christian spirituality cultivates a desire for God so great that the human person wants only God and chooses all that God wants for us. A single-hearted love for God transforms the person and draws him or her into the reciprocal relationship called union with Christ and, in him, with all who belong to him. This lofty vision may intimidate ordinary people, and the literature of contemplative spirituality may cause them to shy away from prayer where most of the "work" of desire is accomplished. Celia Wolf-Devine writes for just such people, especially those in midlife.
Wolf-Devine, Emerita Professor of Philosophy at Stonehill College, brings a rich background of learning and religious experience to this book. Her own itinerary exposed her to many varied approaches to prayer. This book is not about her, however, and she is quick to point out that prayer is not about us. It is about God. Still, she joins the ranks of writers on prayer who, in telling about what has worked for them, speak to many other companions on the spiritual journey. She writes as a laywoman, a wife, and an ordinary Christian in a limpid and engaging style and does so with the unobtrusive authority of a born teacher, who both grounds her views in the solid tradition of the Church and relates it to ordinary experience.
The author begins with the simple observation that Scriptures present the human heart as the source of all desire. Those desires, as Augustine tells us, leave the heart no rest until it rests in God. She approaches prayer from the viewpoint of our desire for God and of God's desire for us.
In her first chapter, "Standing in the Need of Prayer," Wolf-Devine addresses our need and the things that hold us back from praying. These obstacles include cultural attitudes, bad experiences, questions about what language to use in our gender-sensitive age, and vices like sloth and despair. Then she tells us, "The first step in prayer is simply to be willing to sit in the presence of God in an attitude of openness and trust" (p.24). She examines our expectations of presence to God, discusses tellingly the scriptural concept of the Glory of God in relation to prayer, and invites us to trust and to be docile to the Spirit.
In her second chapter on the basics of prayer, Wolf-Devine avoids theoretical considerations. Instead, she says simply, "I call what I do 'prayer' because I understand myself to be directing my attention toward God and seeking to enter into a relationship with Him. It involves reaching toward God, and invocation of God (calling out to Him, calling upon His name) and opening myself to Him" (p.33). Her practical suggestions cover the FAQs about the "mechanics" of prayer, posture, way of thinking about God and self, purpose of prayer, distractions, role of the imagination, etc. For example, in discussing the imagination she notes, "I do not deliberately visualize anything at all when employing the images suggested below. Rather they help me understand how I stand in relation to God and structure my response to Him" (p.44). She gives examples of images she has found helpful and follows these with written prayers that she uses. She includes the Nicene and Apostles Creeds and discusses other set prayers, most notably the Litany of the Sacred Heart -- which she notes is Scripture based -- in the appendix. Lovers of God who have been made to feel shamed by their need for "vocal" prayers will find her use of traditional prayers and hymns particularly refreshing.
In the long chapter that follows, Wolf-Devine turns her attention to problems we may encounter on the way, including various kinds of scruples, sources of discouragement, doubts, and temptations. Her pragmatic comments reveal a solid depth of experience, familiarity with psychological issues, theological insight, and good sense. This chapter should relieve anxieties of many embarking on the journey of prayer.
These problems naturally lead to a deeper consideration of the nature of prayer, and she devotes a rather eclectic chapter to different approaches to prayer chosen from a layperson's viewpoint. She discusses the Jesus Prayer, prayer of penitence, prayer of thanksgiving, adoration, intercession, healing, praying in tongues and praying for guidance. Wolf-Devine approaches each with a solid combination of openness and a discernment based on the Scriptures and the confirmation provided by other Christians.
In her final chapter, she addresses some larger questions of Christian life and their relationship to prayer. They include getting help for yourself -- spiritual direction and psychotherapy -- and right relations with others, sin, and suffering, and the hope to which we are called. Each of these topics gives her space to range widely on practical issues that concern all Christians, often with great insight into the cultural problems of our times -- such as the American culture's terrified flight from vulnerability, fear, and brokenness in its need for empowerment and control. Yet her tone is never pedantic or clinical. Instead, she writes as one sharing personal thoughts and experinces with friends.
Wolf-Devine writes generically for Christians and draws on a wide range of Christian sources, including those of her own Catholic faith. At times one might wish for more theological development and a greater treatment of participation in Church life, especially as regards sacramental life and magisterium. However, this is not a systematic work and, in the end, it is her affable down-to-earth approach that makes it so accessible.
The Heart Transformed is a good introduction to Christian prayer that offers much to seasoned practioners of prayer as well. --Spiritual Life, Fall 2010.
Leaf through the typical book on prayer, and you will find certain features. It will be assumed that both author and reader agree about the usefulness of prayer. Objections to prayer masquerading as philosophy or science will not be raised. Questions such as, "Am I only imagining things?" will not be addresswed. The reader will be a person of prayer, though perhaps not so advanced in the art of prayer as he wishes to be. He will know at least something about contemplation. It is expected that he will belong to the same community of faith that the author belongs to.
None of these assumptions hold true of Celia Wolf-Devine's remarkable, eminently readable, and utterly useful book.
In it, the author -- a professor of philosophy, and a convert from agnosticism to Roman Catholicism -- manages a kind of ecumenism that should cheer the hearts of all Christians. She finds riches in all the Christian communions, taking beautiful lyrics, for example, from the Evangelical hymn book The Sacred Harp, or the "Jesus prayer" from Eastern Orthodoxy, or the Litany of the Sacred Heart from Catholicism, and without once effacing the differences that separate one communion from another, she shows how all Christians of good will can profit by them.
But the book is not simply for committed Christians. Professor Wolf-Devine understands that most people, in fact, do not really know much about prayer, let alone about the contemplative life. It is her task to lead them gently into prayer, by means of all kinds of practical advice, taken from Scripture, from her reading of the great Christian mystics and other wise authors, from her spiritual advisors, and from her own experience. The advice is therefore steeped in theology, yet is offered as a gift from one person seeking God to another.
Such, for instance, are the moments when the author reveals something about her own life of prayer. "After I finish praying," she writes, "I sometimes pray that [Jesus] will remain in me, and continue to hold dominion over any part of me that I have succeeded in surrendering to him even for a moment -- that I won't try to take things back."
Time and again, Wolf-Devine, as an expert analyst of the human person, places herself in the shoes of people who want to pray but don't know how to start, or who think they may be foolish in doing so, or who wonder whether they have the time. The spirit of the great Josef Pieper is everywhere to be found here. "Don't think of prayer," she says, "as another thing you have to do. It provides an opportunity to disengage yourself from the rat race, to be freed from the pressure of time and experience something of the leisureliness and eternity of God."
Masterly, that connection between prayer and God's playful eternity; it is a deft reminder that when we pray, we enter more fully into the life of God himself. But there will be difficulties along the way -- scruples, self-consciousness, "scientific" smirks, temptations, aridity, even such ordinary things as sleepiness and impatience -- and these the author enumerates and discusses with admirable candor, and yet with full confidence that in the end they are nothing to worry about.
More than anything else, this is a book designed not only to meet our desire to pray, but to foster that flame till it rises up in a bonfire of praise. The book is filled with anecdotes about ordinary human beings whose lives have been transformed by the prayer that has made them one with Christ. It is the heart, the core of their being, that longs restlessly for God. Celia Wolf-Devine has helped to show why they have such longing, and how that longing can be made, by prayer, all the more keen, and as far as it is given to us on this side of Paradise, satisfied. --Anthony Esolen in the September/October 2010 issue of Touchstone
Our present society in America is not good for people. We feel like victims. It is too easy today to do little or nothing. We are in a rut. The media tells us night and day to take the easy way. We do so, but we are anxious. We know we should be doing more.
We need God to nourish our souls, so says author Celia Wolf-Devine in the introduction to her book. We are confused in a world that takes over care of the body and neglects the soul. Our souls feel empty. Within we are restless. We need God "to give us the strength to carry on." We need prayer. We especially need it as we grow older. Without prayer we can easily turn sour and cynical.
God is an inexhaustible source of life and joy. We must turn to him if we ever wish to be happy. But many people are influenced by our secularist times and think prayer is old-fashioned. We must pray so that suffering will not overcome us. Prayer is the anchor in the storms of life.
One need only read a page of this book to know that the author, a lay person, knows from experience about prayer and the spiritual life. One grows weary of books about prayer by people who do not pray, prayerless wonders. One grows even more weary of books by scholars for other scholars about the spiritual life. They leave us ordinary people cold. We need practical theology, something we can use in our everyday life. This is such a book.
Prayer, she says, is the heart of our faith: it brings Jesus to us. How wonderful Jesus alone knows how to untangle the knots in our lives. Jesus is the physician who heals our souls.
The author gives us ways to pray. Thank God they are not mystical, but methods anyone can use. She tells us that prayer brings a conversion of heart; it is the lifeblood of a living faith. It makes us whole and vibrantly alive.
It is our joy to love God. This comes from prayer. Many other wise things she tells us. You must read the book. --Fr. Rawley Myers in the March 2010 issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review
The central theme of The Heart Transformed is the transformation of our hearts that God effects when we pray, a transformation that will make our hearts more like Jesus. The author was a philosophy professor at Stonehill College (Easton, MA) and has experience with Transcendental Meditation, Quaker services, an evangelical church that combined New Age and Christian elements, Episcopal and Anglican churches and, finally, she converted to the Catholic Church. Her familiarity with these different approaches to God and her familiarity with Catholic authors enhance her writing.
Wolf-Devine discusses the importance of private prayer, common barriers to prayer, and helpful attitudes to start praying. The actual prayers she uses are presented with suggestions about ways of using them. The key prayers are included in an appendix along with annotations for opening prayers, invocation of the Holy Spirit, surrender prayer, and the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Obstacles to a prayer life, including scruples, discouragement when prayers are not answered, temptations, and doubts, are presented with suggestions for dealing with them and integrating prayer into your daily life. Once prayer is part of your day, it is important that it affects your day-to-day activities. For example, when we feel God's love we should be full of a joy that shows. God will transform our hearts if we come into his presence with prayer, being receptive and surrendering to Him.
Wolf-Devine has effectively described her prayer life as she became immersed in Catholicism and developed a close relationship to God. While focusing on the prayers she uses and the time she spends in prayer, she also suggests direct talking to God and listening in silence. The book could be an excellent guide for someone who really wants to start a prayer life and let God enter their hearts. --John B. Shewmaker in Catholic Library World, December 2009
Transformed: Rich in details and comprehensive in its approach, The Heart Transformed: Prayer of Desire by author Celia Wolf-Devine maintains a sustained focus on the Lord indicating a large variety of ways in which readers can enter into a deeper relationship with God through private prayer. The tone is consistently gentle, encouraging and inviting, evoking a prayerful mood without being gimmicky or saccharine. The focus is on a flexible approach that takes its lead from the desire to draw closer to the Lord. This prayer of the heart is a work of the soul which can go on ceaselessly even when we are asleep. It carries us out of ourselves and leads to a kind of surrender and death to self that opens us to a new life in God following the lead of St. Augustine who said, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." Our receptivity to God's work in us is key to our spiritual growth and sanctification. This work points the ways. --Crux of the News, August 24, 2009
In the painting by Claire Brown used for this book’s cover, there is an image of Jesus standing facing humanity with pierced feet and a pierced left hand raised symbolically. The left shoulder is covered while the right shoulder exposes the under garment and the pierced heart of Jesus. In an email inquiry to Celia Wolf-Devine into the reason Brown’s painting was selected, she indicated that she loved the painting. She wrote, “The eyes seem to look at you. It is serious—almost haunting looking—but looking inviting and loving.”
This work is a loving invitation to become engaged in private prayer. “The focus in this book is on the sort of conversion that occurs in prayer, which is why I entitled it The Heart Transformed: Prayer of Desire. The “heart,” however, should not be understood as merely our feelings or emotions” (p. xv). Both positive and negative experiences can happen at the core of our being. Wolf-Devine writes, “If some word or action is “heartfelt” it is deeper or richer than just the words of the lips. Something is “heartening” if it is encouraging and inspires us with courage and hope. Negatively, we speak of people as “hardhearted,” “coldhearted,” or “heartless.” Weak or cowardly people are described as “fainthearted” (p. xv). When a person is sad we speak of them as “downhearted,” or “disheartened.” We all know these experiences in our lives.
There are five chapters that provide the structure for this book; and, each chapter offers insights that can be integrated into our private prayers. One insight in Chapter One reveals that many persons have a problem with the language of prayer. She shows how God can be experienced as transcending gender without changing the language. She writes: “...it is not the case that we should never change religious language, it is important to keep in mind that Christianity is an extremely deep and complex religion that operates on a number of interconnected levels (intellectual, affective, imaginative, symbolic, etc), and small changes in one area may have large unexpected effects elsewhere, perhaps compromising the truth, power and coherence of the whole” (p. 21). Readers can appreciate this acknowledgement.
The use of images in private prayer in Chapter Two can be enlightening. She writes, “...different images may be helpful at different times. Some days you may feel particularly like an enemy occupied city—beset by temptations and powerless to do anything to help yourself. Another day you may feel like dry, hard, brambly ground longing for the softening dew or rain of the spirit. Another day you may feel a sense of delight as though you are drinking from a spring of living water” (p. 44). In pages 54-63, Wolf-Devine shares her prayer routine that includes long and short prayers and insights into how they can be integrated into one’s prayer life.
Chapter Three provides many insights into how our prayer life is affected by our temptations, scruples, discouragement and doubts. Consider the practical suggestion regarding our desires; the distinction is made between “first order desires” and “second order desires.” A person may feel strongly the desire to wound another, but on second thought realizes that this is not the kind of person they want to be. “The desire to be this better sort of person, then, is a second order desire" (p. 70). This insight can assist us in times of temptation and in our approach to God in prayer. We know we have these desires and often question our own motivations. Remembering this distinction in our desires can assist us getting at the heart of the person we desire to be.
Chapter Four suggests types or ways of praying that a person may find helpful. “Certain things like penitence, thanksgiving, and praise are standard aspects of Christian prayer generally, but other things like the Jesus prayer or praying in tongues may be right for you or they may not” (p. 109). Some practical ways that our lives can continue to be transformed are shared in Chapter Five. Here Wolf-Devine reveals the significance of caring for our imagination, following guidelines for seeking help, caring for our relationships through forgiveness and a non judgmental attitude towards others and ourselves.
These five chapters do not contain a long list of things to do among many others. They are inviting suggestions and sharing of experiences that seek to show “...the way in which prayer can facilitate God’s transforming work” (p. 179) of keeping our lives centered in Him.
The Appendix includes The Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, gives some reflections on prayers provided in Chapter Two and provides some useful prayers. Chaplains, pastors and other supportive persons can recognize in this book the spirit of love gently calling and inviting us into a life that is continually being transformed by God. This resource can be used for the chaplain’s self-care and offers a range of wisdom that can be useful in helping others to pray. --Michael G. Davis, DMin, BCC., Retired, Hernando, Mississippi
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