The task of this book is to help you find your “voice,” in your conversations with the Holy One. God is present in every situation. This book strives to help you reflect on your situation and discuss it with the One Who Listens. The author gives examples of such conversations in the belief that you will not need them in the future as you interact with the text.

As we age and retire, our vision, focus, preoccupations, interests and needs change with us. So, it is with prayer. As a practical matter, seniors have more time to reflect, to pray and to reach out to others.

Life appears more finite to us, health seems more fragile as our relatives, neighbors and friends experience changes in their health, terminal illness and death. We have likely had more time for friends and they for us, so their challenges become our challenges as well. When others experience mortality, we see that it might not be far off for us either.

What part does God play in these changes. God has always been there for us. In Christian belief, God the Father has always been sustaining us in life and in creation. God, the Son, has been with us as a Brother though perhaps we were too busy to notice. God the Holy Spirit has been within us, making us priests to serve our God. In retirement, we have time for friends and time for our friendship with God. We are not new to God, but perhaps God is new to us – at least in terms of our renewed relationship.

With this time to converse with God, Father, Son and Spirit, we see God as Friend, as Companion, as creator of the environment as lover of each and every person who has been created. We can experience God as loving unconditionally. Our training may have portrayed God as a watchman, an accountant, someone to be abnormally feared. God has been used as a control mechanism for society starting with our parents, teachers and preachers. Whether its Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the hands of an angry god,” “Be careful, God is watching you.” This was especially true in sexual morality. Apparently, God was more interested in sex than even we were. So now is a good time to meet and engage with the real God, not the social-control god we may have been introduced to before.

The real God is ready to converse, to hear our worries and interests, to give us peace as well as the ability to be closer and more intimate with others. I am hoping that the organization of this prayerbook will help the reader and pray-er to find and develop their unique relationship with God, to find prayers that help them speak their inmost thoughts, desires and fears to God but also to listen to God as the Spirit inspires through our unfettered thoughts, our reflection on scripture, the guidance of holy books and others. Jesuits have a keen sense for this. Pope Francis has introduced the Jesuit – Ignatian notion of discernment. This prayerbook is intended to help the pray-ers to enter into this discernment process in way that provides direction, relationships, companionate activity, outreach to those in need and ultimately Peace.