William A. Barry

William J. Connolly

The Classic Work on Helping People Become Closer to God Fathers Barry and Connolly see the work of spiritual direction as helping people to develop their relationship with God. In thinking and practice they have absorbed the insights of modern psychotherapy, but have not been absorbed by them. This highly practical book reflects the authors' experience at the Center for Religious Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where spiritual direction is available and where directors are trained.

The Practice of Spiritual Direction

Barry dispels the image that the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are reserved only for religious. He leads us through the Exercises and shares how they can be used to benefit the ordinary person's relationship with God.

A Companion to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

Finding God in All Things

Prayer is first and foremost a personal relationship and that the most fruitful prayer is that builds upon and enhances relationship. It shows us how we can develop an intimate relationship with God.

Prayer as a Personal Relationship

God and You

Presuming a passionate desire on God's part for an intimate relationship with each one of us, Father Barry presents a collection of 17 meditations to serve as steps toward that encounter. Enlivened by a rich array of stories, poetry, and quotations, the meditations feature the works of John Donne, C.S. Lewis, Flannery O'Conner, J.D. Salinger, and others.

God's Passionate Desire... And Our Response

A prayerful reflection on our desire and God's for a deep and loving relationship, and the fears that must be overcome to achieve it.

Developing an Intimate Relationship with God

With an Everlasting Love

2021 Illumination Book Awards, Silver Medal: Theology God’s presence is not “out there” but right here. We tend to look for God in dramatic or miraculous moments, but such expectations can blind us to God’s ongoing presence. What if God is already with us, in the life we have this moment? When we experience ordinary but meaningful events, such as our first love or a favorite novel, we are in fact encountering God’s presence. As we learn to notice spiritual movement within and around us, we can recognize the many facets of God’s love that touch us daily. “As a priest and spiritual director of many decades, my driving desire is for people to experience God’s limitless love for them and to recognize it when it emerges in what they consider just ordinary life happenings and conversations.” —William A. Barry, SJ Whether we are in pain or crisis, questioning if we are really worthy of God’s attention, or are simply wondering why God would be in the mundane details of our lives, Experiencing God in the Ordinary can nurture our hope—that God is always present and can be found in an ordinary day. Complete with personal stories and various suggestions for prayer and meditation, this book is perfect for devotional reading, retreat, or small-group discussion.

Experiencing God in the Ordinary

We don't question our desire to be open with our close friends about our feelings, even if those feelings are difficult to express. We recognize that being honest with our loved ones will only deepen our bonds and help us feel peace in being able to express our innermost thoughts. Why then is it so challenging for us to come as we are, however we are, when approaching God in prayer? In Praying the Truth: Deepening Your Friendship with God through Honest Prayer, William A. Barry, SJ, helps us deepen our friendship with God by examining how to approach God, at any time and with any problem, in complete honesty. Fr. Barry reflects on how secrecy can hurt families, the Church, and ourselves and how what we are keeping secret can get in the way of our connection with God. He acknowledges that we may fear God’s reaction when revealing our most intimate truths; but just like with friendships, we risk not developing our relationship with God if we are dishonest about who we are and how we feel. Praying the Truth helps us realize that if we do not approach God in complete honesty, we may be holding back a part of ourselves that needs to be healed. By learning how to communicate honestly with God, our friendship with God and our faith in God’s promise to love us unconditionally will be strengthened. "Thanks to Praying the Truth, I am beginning to understand that prayer is simply hanging out with God! As I read this book, I felt as if the author seemed to be sitting beside me, just talking to me as I read." -- Anonymous reader

Deepening Your Friendship with God through Honest Prayer

Praying the Truth

You have a place in God’s great story. The divine narrative begins With The creation of the universe and continues through humanity’s fall and struggle, the promises of the prophets, and the coming of Jesus. The story unfolds to reveal God’s mercy for us over our history of sin and redemption, and the plot includes us as partners in God’s great dream for the world. In his parting message to us, Fr. William A. Barry offers a lifetime of wisdom and compassion as he leads the reader through the overarching story of God’s relationship with us, the beloved creation. With his characteristic warm and personal style, Fr. Barry invites us to ponder how the events and characters of Scripture relate to us in real time and daily experience. His theme, so prominent in his life’s work as author and spiritual director, is simply this: God desires our friendship and participation in the grand story of grace.

God's Great Story and You

An approach to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius As more and more people begin to reclaim their spiritual heritage, longoverlooked traditions resurface, offering seekers new ways to rekindle their spiritual selves. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola is such a tradition, and its recovery in the church has sparked the interest of many believers—religious and laypeople alike. In light of this resurgence, Fr. William A. Barry, a director of the Spiritual Exercises for more than thirty years, offers Letting God Come Close, a guide that shows spiritual directors how to effectively and creatively help individuals meet the living God through the Exercises. Using clear, down-to-earth examples from his own experience, Fr. Barry hopes to instill in the director the trust, confidence, and skills needed to help retreatants approach God. “Spiritual directors will find a gold mine here of help in understanding and giving the Exercises.” —George Aschenbrenner, S.J., director, Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth “For over thirty years Barry has listened attentively for the ways God deals directly with God’s people through the Spiritual Exercises. God’s voice comes through and Barry helps directors pay attention.” —George R. Murphy, S.J., adjunct lecturer in spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley

An Approach to the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises

Letting God Come Close

Live in the love of a God who desires a relationship with you. Throughout A Friendship Like No Other, renowned spiritual director William A. Barry, SJ, explores the premise that God wants to relate to us as a close friend. Barry has contemplated this idea—radical for many Christians—throughout his lifetime, and he explains that it actually traces back to the “developing revelation of God contained in the Bible.” A Friendship Like No Other offers three well-supported and practical sections: prayerful exercises to help lead you to the conviction that God wants your friendship; a close look at objections to this idea; and reflections on experiencing the presence of God and discerning those experiences. Brief, personal meditations are woven throughout. Grounded in biblical tradition and with a clear focus on Ignatian spirituality, this book offers a fresh, heart-changing approach to living joyfully in the freedom of the divine embrace.

Experiencing God's Amazing Embrace

A Friendship Like No Other

Developing a friendship with God may be the starting point for the spiritual journey, but how can that important internal relationship move us to make an impact on—and even transform—the world around us? In Changed Heart, Changed World, renowned spiritual director William A. Barry, SJ, delves into such topics as how friendship with God impacts our role in society, how to see forgiveness as a way of life, and how compassion can make its mark on the world. Throughout the book, Fr. Barry provides many practical ways to integrate the inner life, where we experience a relationship with God, with the outer life, where we live in relationship with our world. Above all else, Changed Heart, Changed World reminds us that God has a dream for his creation here and now—a dream that can only be realized by our becoming “other Christs in this world.”

The Transforming Freedom of Friendship with God

Changed Heart, Changed World

Kerry A. Maloney

A Hunger for God: Ten Approaches to Prayer gathers some of the best essays from tow years of a public series on prayer at Boston College. The authors, representing a variety of academic disciplines, probe the mysteries and possibilities of prayer for person who year to find God.

Ten Approaches to Prayer

A Hunger for God

What does it mean to have a relationship with God? Why do so many of us avoid a relationship with God at all costs? What examples from Scripture might guide us in developing a close, prayerful relationship with God? In Seek My Face, William A. Barry, SJ, provides thoughtful and easy-to-understand answers that can help anyone draw closer to God.Throughout the book, Fr. Barry introduces situations and personalities from both the Old and New Testaments to show readers the various ways in which people in the Bible—Abraham, Moses, Peter, Jesus—drew closer to God, and how we can use their examples to develop a closer relationship with God ourselves.

William A. Barry

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