Hi, I'm Edwards Sari and welcome to all things Catholic, where real faith meets real life.

Do you ever struggle to fit in time for prayer amidst a very busy life?

You're building your career, you're raising children. You feel stretched and overwhelmed

in so many ways. And then you know prayer is important. You want to get it in, but it doesn't always

happen. How do we build the habit of prayer? And how do we really make it a time for encounter with our

God? That's where we're going to take a look at in this week's podcast. So welcome to all things

Catholic. I'm your host, Edward Sari. And I have a guest that's going to join us here.

I was blessed to co-author a book on prayer with this guest.

It's called Pocket Guide to Prayer.

It's published by Ascension Press, and I was blessed to co-author it with my wife, Beth.

Welcome back to the show, Beth.

Hello, Beth. Welcome back to the show, Beth. Hello, friends. Great to be with you.

So we had a chance to write a book together again. Why don't you tell the listeners a bit like,

what's the background on this? Why did we write this book? We realized that in our own beginnings of

learning how to pray, and then in several of the lives of people that we know and love and work with,

it's easy to be overwhelmed with the prospect of prayer. You know, I'm Catholic. I want to grow

in my faith. I know prayer is an essential part of that. I don't know where to start. It's easy to

get a sort of analysis paralysis. You know, I have 30 minutes to pray. What should I do? Should I read the

sacred scriptures? Should I, you know, pray the rosary? Should I read a book about the saints? You know,

should I just stare at the Eucharist? What, what should I do? How should I start? And the church

in her wisdom offers a treasury of different approaches to prayer. She holds some up higher than others,

and it's sometimes hard to wade through all the different options. So what we wanted to do was

...