C&SI -The Glenstal Prayer Book with Br Simon Sleeman OSB - 17 Aug 2025 (S05 E36)

On this weeks podcast we are delighted to chat to Br Simon Sleeman OSB from Glenstal about one of the latest additions to the Glenstal repertoire, the Glenstal Prayer Book in part two. 

In part one, we have our regular run through notices, liturgical odds and ends including saints of the coming week with a prayer space and reflection. 

In part three we have some brief reflections and thoughts to share on this weeks gospel from Luke 12: 49-53 and the disconcerting message of Jesus that he has come to shake us out of our complacency and that the call to discipleship will disrupt our lives if we truly live it out. 

The Glenstal Prayer Book

Simon Sleeman is a Benedictine monk, beekeeper, naturalist and presenter of the ‘Mindful Monk’ series of videos on nature, psychology and spirituality. He joins John  and Shane this week to introduce the new Glenstal Prayer Book. The Prayer Book is a new iteration of the  publishing phenomenon of 2001 which was the Glenstal Book of Prayer but with a changed focus and a deeper invitation into prayer.

As Br Simon says in the introduction, "Prayer is our attempt to get love and God straight.  This book provides prayers to help with this life long project - prayers to answer God in love......It is not a, ‘how to’ book. ‘How to pray’ in never the first question. The first question is, ‘To whom do we pray?’ We pray to the living God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. The God ‘alive and active’ and revealed to us in Sacred Scripture.........Prayer is not a technique we learn or a special device we acquire - it is a tender, personal, living relationship with God. A relationship that needs minding............‘Be slow to pray’ the old masters said. This is no harmless, weekend activity. In prayer, we enter the large world of God, a world far larger than we are used to - a world ‘alive and active’ with God’s grace. A world where we come close to words that “break cedars, and shake the wilderness and strip forests bare”. So, be slow to pray because you are opening a portal into the infinitely deep world of God; God Creator of the Universe." 

Link to the Glenstal Abbey bookshop

Keeping Company with God - Reflection about the prayer book by Br Simon on the Glenstal Abbey website.

Br Simon's own blog from during covid and his Youtube channel - the Mindful Monk. You can also listen back to an interview he did with Brendan O'Connor on RTE Radio 1 in 2021.