I have a confession.

I have a Bible, I have a Catechism, and I have a Book of Christian Prayer.  Actually, I have more than one Bible and I’m pretty sure there are two Catechism of the Catholic Church sitting on my bookshelf.

But I didn’t have a small book of the prayers that I want to say the most often. You know what I’m talking about, I’m pretty sure. An Act of Contrition (no! I don’t have it memorized and I know I should but the confessional has one in it and I rely on it too much), the Angelus, the closing prayer of the rosary (don’t judge! For some reason this prayer just doesn’t “stick”); I don’t have any of these prayers memorized and not really any convenient place to locate them.

“Talking to God” has all of these prayers bound together in a convenient little 4 x 5 size; perfect for tossing into a purse. So, no, it’s not meant to be read through from cover to cover. Of course you can. It would give you a nice survey of all the lovely prayers. But long term, you’ll want to keep the book handy.

Not all of the prayers are traditional prayers. Some are modern prayers written for various things, and times common to women’s lives. These particular prayers – the modern ones – weren’t the ones my heart was drawn to. But the thing that they provided – even if I don’t plan to pray them – is exactly what the lovely preface promised.

In the preface, Grace Mazza notes, “one surprising blessing of Julie Cragon’s book is the acceptance we find in its pages…we know we are not alone.”

We aren’t alone.

And when we’re frantically searching through the depths of an oversized purse, and our hand stumbles upon an unassuming book of prayers, and when we open it up and find that there are prayers for nearly every minute – including the frantic one we happen to find ourselves in – we’ll remember that we aren’t alone.

We have each other. And we have Him.

And we can talk to each other; and more importantly, we can talk with Him.

And if a pocket sized book can give us the words to start the conversation, we would all be so lucky to receive a copy of “Talking to God.”

(pssst. this book would make a Mother’s Day present…..)

I was given a copy of this book with the hopes that I would provide a (favorable) review. But free books don’t necessarily make good books and my opinions are my own.