Fr. Spitzer, President of Gonzaga University and a highly regarded spiritual teacher and writer, presents a practical, yet rich guide for helping busy people develop a regular and deeper prayer life. Based on many successful retreats and seminars he has given over the years, this brilliant Jesuit priest presents five essential means through which the contemplative and active aspects of our lives can be fused together for a stronger spiritual life.

Fr. Spitzer says that the contemporary generation, perhaps more than any other, needs to integrate contemplation into its very hyperactive way of life, because contemplation allows God to probe the depths of our hearts and allows us to gain deeper insight into His truth and love. This, in turn, leads ultimately to freedom—the freedom to love in the very imitation of Jesus Christ himself: " This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, espoused the ideal of becoming "contemplatives in action." He was convinced that contemplation (the deep awareness and appropriation of the unconditional love of God) should affect our actions, and that our actions need to be brought back to contemplation. Fr. Spitzer shows that there are five essential means through which this ideal can be attained, particularily for busy people. 1. the Holy Eucharist, 2. spontaneous prayer, 3. the Beatitudes, 4. partnership with the Holy Spirit, and 5. the contemplative life itself.

Not intending to replace the great beauty and depth of the spiritual masters, this book is a "jump start" to a deeper spiritual life which will enflame the desire to read the masters and to enter even more deeply into the heart of God.

“The publication of Father Spitzer’s book is a happy coincidence, coming soon after Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth. Both are strong statements of New Testament spirituality and provide an escape from the ‘bleaching of Christ’s image’, caused by the exclusive use of the historical-critical method. Informed Catholic readers are summoned by this book to take the Christ of the Gospels intelligently and seriously.”