Art and Prayer: The Beauty of Turning to God, Paperback

Prayer is natural for human beings, a spontaneous impulse common in all people. Yet, beyond instinct, there is a kind of prayer that's conscious and articulate, that we have to be taught. There is an "art of prayer," when faith and prayer become creative responses by which creatures made in the image and likeness of the Creator relate to him with help of the imagination. Timothy Verdon explores these essential interactions in this magnificent book. Richly illustrated, Monsignor Verdon explains that images work in believers as tools that teach them how to turn to God. Art and Prayer explores these interactions in detail, demonstrating that prayer can become a fruit of the sanctified imagination - a way of beauty and turning to God.

Monsignor Timothy Verdon, one of the world's most respected art historians, is the Academic Director of the Mount Tabor Centre in Barga, Italy. He earned his PhD at Yale University and has lived in Italy for the last half century where he also directs the Diocesan Office of Sacred Art and Church Cultural Heritage, the Cathedral Foundation Museum (Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore), and the Centre for Ecumenism of the Archdiocese of Florence.