Peter Kreeft (1937-) has been a professor of philosophy for thirty-eight years at Boston College. Among his forty books, he wrote A Prayer for Beginners. It is, as advertised, a simple, direct treatment of prayer for novices. Peter admits, after years of actively engaging in prayer, he is still a beginner when it comes to prayer. At the outset of his book, he urges readers that “the single most important piece of advice about prayer is one word: begin.” He urges readers to make prayer free and conversational. Don’t be overly concerned about saying the right words since God is the only One who will never, ever misunderstand us. He urges would-be prayers to start small, in five-minute increments, utilizing the Psalms to teach us how to pray. Several quotes from his book are worth mentioning:
“Why try too much and trust too little. Count the times God’s Book tells us to ‘try.’ Now count the times it tells us to ‘trust.’”
“Thomas Aquinas said the only way to drive out a bad passion is by a stronger good passion.”
“God wants us to worry about our sins before our sin; the devil wants us to worry after we sin. The devil tempts us to cavalier pride before our sin and worrisome prayer afterward.”
“I guarantee that after you die, you will not say, ‘I spent too much time praying. I wish I had watched more TV instead.”
Peter’s prayer for beginners includes a prayer for skeptics and seekers: