If you are looking for a great faith-based book study, I would love to invite you to  St. Teresa’s Online Book Club. This faith-sharing group is a great way to read awesome Catholic books with friends from everywhere! This summer, we are excited to share that we will be helping you grow in your prayer life with our new book, Pray Fully: Simple Steps for Becoming a Woman of Prayer published by Ave Maria Press. 

We wrote this book in response from women across the nation who shared with us about how they were struggling in their own prayer life. We also know what it is like to struggle with prayer! In our new book we promise to fill you with insights, suggestions, and tools to help you grow closer to God and develop a personal relationship with Him. 

In Pray Fully, we share these basic prayer principles that have helped us to become women of prayer:

  • how to make time for personal, daily communication with Jesus
  • spending time meditating and engaging in other spiritual practices such as adoration or the Examen
  • recognizing the critical times of each day when you need a “prayer boost”
  • living deeply in the sacraments and enrich your life with sacramentals
  • recording your intentions and thank God for answered prayer

Encouraging stories and practical advice—including tips from the lives and writings of the saints: St. Gemma Galgani, St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. Gianna Beretta Molla, St. Louis and Zelie Martin, St. Benedicta of the Cross and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. In addition to these saint friends, we share powerful examples from our life and the life of our friends of how prayer has changed us into the women they are today!

We’ve also provide questions for personal reflection and private meditation, and journaling space to help you develop a lifelong dialogue with God.

Weekly Discussions and Details:

How do I participate? It’s simple!

  1. Request to join our facebook group here.
  2. If you haven’t already, purchase Pray Fully: Simple Steps for becoming a Woman of Prayer and invite your friends to join us! Consider giving the book as a gift and inviting them to join our online book club.  Use code Stteresa2020 at Ave Maria Press to save 25%!!!
  3. Once you sign up for this study on Facebook, you will receive comments and posts from the group and even the author about each chapter.  We even invite you to share your prayer tips and struggles on journey!

We’ll aim at reading one chapter per week. Every Friday, we will moderate discussions based on the chapter of the week on Facebook Live at 3:00 pm. On our start date, May 22nd and we will discuss the Introduction and Chapter One.  These sessions will be a fun way to kick off the weekend and connect with you during the physical distancing of COVID-19. 

Feel free to send us questions or comments you might have so we can address them during these Live Sessions.

This book club is open to all Catholic women. Feel free to invite your family members and friends!

Important: This Facebook group is “closed,” which means that members of the group are the only ones who can see the comments you write. So no worries about too-personal musings showing up in the newsfeeds of friends and relatives!

To learn more, visit our new site to download the free study guide and watch the Pray Fully video series: https://www.inspirethefaith.com/pray-fully-resource-page/

Endorsements and testimonies:  

“In Pray Fully Michele Faehnle and Emily Jaminet do a wonderful job in helping women who want to pray. Drawing from their experiences as busy moms and wives as well as in work and ministry, they are able to provide tried-and-true advice to help readers grow in intimacy with Jesus. They are honest, authentic, and wonderful examples of women who struggle to grow closer to God but continue to persevere in grace.” —Fr. Dave Pivonka, T.O.R., President of Franciscan University of Steubenville

“I love this book! It is practical, easy to read, and vibrant with rich teaching from the Church’s tradition.” —Fr. Nathan Cromly, C.S.J., President, St. John Institute

What a delightful book! Although not long, there is an overflowing buffet of ideas, thoughts, stories, prayers, meditation & prayer exercises throughout. It covers almost any mood, state of mind, experiences that a woman may have had or where they are currently in their faith journey.- Holmes Girl (Amazon Review) 

I very much enjoyed this book. I love reading stories of prayer, and these book was full of them. It was encouraging but not heavy-handed, and pulled a lot of meditative, Ignatian style prayers alongside lectio divina. It never strayed far from it’s goal or into overwrought saccharine piety or complicated long prayer. I think it’s good for people who feel pulled to prayer but don’t quite “get there” so to speak, whether due to stray thoughts or busy lives or whatever else.- Amazon Review