Prayer: The Mission of the Church

Jean Danielou devoted his life and scholarship to the question of Christianity and culture. He approached this question in the light of the full Catholic tradition, drawing from the rich resources of the early church fathers, whom he loved deeply. In The Mission of the Church Danielou considers the centrality of prayer for the Christian layperson, developing the insight that the active, missionary dimension of the Christian life is in fact the “self-unfolding” of contemplation. There is clearly a trinitarian structure here, in line with both biblical and patristic thought. The spontaneous tone of these short but direct chapters brings out the affective presence of their author and places the issues within the existential context in which theology and spirituality converge.