It s one thing to know that God desires your friendship. It s quite another to experience it.
It s a difficult enough proposition for many people to believe that God eternal, unchanging, all-knowing could actually desire a relationship with them. But once they ve accepted the premise that God indeed does want their friendship, it can be even more challenging to think about how to actually engage in that friendship, foster it, and remain anchored in it when life s storms toss them about.
In Here s My Heart, Here s My Hand, veteran spiritual director William A. Barry, SJ, helps us understand how we can experience a special, personal relationship with God, and what effects that close relationship will have on our lives. The book is a collection of nearly twenty of the finest previously published articles Fr. Barry has written on the subject of friendship with God. Although the selections are diverse in their overall themes from changing our image of God to forgiving as Jesus forgives each one shares the common thread of helping us see prayer as the way to a conscious relationship with God.
Written in the warm, conversational tone for which Fr. Barry is known, Here s My Heart, Here s My Hand is ideal both for spiritual seekers as well as for those who already know the joy of a relationship with God but want to strengthen that friendship and grow in their faith....

A Friendship Like No Other offers three well-supported and practical sections: prayerful exercises to help lead the reader to the conviction that God wants them for a friend; a close look at objections to this idea; and reflections on experiencing the presence of God and discerning those experiences. These sections are enhanced by brief, personal meditations woven throughout.

Grounded in biblical tradition but with clear focus on Ignatian spirituality, this book offers a fresh approach to becoming a friend of God and understanding this special relationship....

Fr. William Barry, SJ, believes that God wants an intimate relationship with each one of us and that the deepest desire of our own hearts is to have an intimate relationship with God.

In God's Passionate Desire, Fr. Barry serves as our spiritual director, leading us on a series of brief retreats to help us understand the foundations of our relationship with God, what threatens it, and how we can continuously move forward into a closer and more meaningful relationship with God. In his warm, conversational style, Barry offers meditations, poses questions, and gently encourages us to respond to God's immeasurable love by following what is truly in each of our hearts a longing for a relationship with God....

As more and more people begin to reclaim their spiritual heritage, long-overlooked traditions resurface, offering seekers new ways to rekindle their spiritual selves. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola is such a tradition, and its recovery in the church has sparked the interest of many believers—religious and laypeople alike.

In light of this resurgence, Fr. William A. Barry, a director of the Spiritual Exercises for more than thirty years, offers Letting God Come Close, a guide that shows spiritual directors how to effectively and creatively help individuals meet the living God through the Exercises. Using clear, down-to-earth examples from his own experience, Fr. Barry hopes to instill in the director the trust, confidence, and skills needed to help retreatants approach God. Spiritual directors and anyone interested in learning more about this increasingly popular practice will find Fr. Barry’s method to be challenging, innovative, and yet faithful to St. Ignatius’s intent....

The Classic Work on Helping People Become Closer to God

Fathers Barry and Connolly see the work of spiritual direction as helping people to develop their relationship with God. In thinking and practice they have absorbed the insights of modern psychotherapy, but have not been absorbed by them. This highly practical book reflects the authors' experience at the Center for Religious Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where spiritual direction is available and where directors are trained.

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Dispelling the myth that spiritual retreats are only for those who can get away for an extended time, seasoned spiritual director William A. Barry, S.J., shares his unique understanding of the Spiritual Exercises and demonstrates how they can benefit the ordinary person's relationship with God. Finding God in All Things gives new life to the spirituality of St. Ignatius and illuminates the transforming power of the Exercises. With over 50,000 copies sold of the first edition, this timely new edition offers today's readers a clear presentation of the themes and contemporary practice of this classic spiritual retreat. ...

Insights on what it means to have an intimate relationship with God, using Old and New Testament stories as a guide.
What does it mean to have intimacy with God? Why do so many of us avoid this intimacy at all costs? What examples from Scripture might guide us in developing a close, prayerful relationship with God? In Seek My Face, William A. Barry, SJ, provides thoughtful and easy-to-understand answers that can help anyone draw closer to God and grasp the surprising breadth of ways in which we and God can become good friends.
Throughout the book, Fr. Barry introduces situations and personalities from both the Old and New Testaments to show readers the various ways in which people in the Bible drew closer to God. Abraham, Moses, the Psalmist, Peter, Jesus these individuals and more help readers see the many different ways we, too, can interact with God, and how confidently expressing to God our deepest emotions and most honest thoughts is exactly what the Divine desires from us.
As Fr. Barry encourages us to follow the Ignatian idea of seeing ourselves in the Bible stories and experiencing each Scriptural situation as if we were there, we grow increasingly comfortable seeing God as a friend. In the end, Fr. Barry gently turns us away from our ambivalence or even fear of a relationship with God and toward a desire to seek God s face at all times and in all ways....