Abba

“Most Christian people often find it difficult to say their prayers in any meaningful way. Here, in these extracts from a book of devotional meditations by Evelyn Underhill, will be found clear but profound guidance on how to pray. The title of the book, Abba, is the term used in more than one place in the New Testament for addressing God as Father and it is with the ‘Our Father’ prayer that these meditations are concerned. At first sight it might be thought impossible to say anything fresh on something so familiar to all Christians as the Lord’s Prayer. Yet the inexhaustible depths of meaning to be found in it may, by the very fact of familiarity, all too easily escape notice and understanding. In these meditations those depths are explored with passionate intensity by an acknowledged expert in Christian mysticism. Both as a scholar of widely recognized academic distinction in her chosen field of story and as one of the leader conductors of retreats in her day, Evelyn Underhill (1875 – 1941) proved to have an unusual gift for combining spiritual perception of a rare order and a deep sympathy with the human situation.” –from the preface by Roger L. Roberts