Everyday Simplicity by Dr. Robert Wicks is a book every Catholic should read, especially those of us in harried, busy and sometimes outrageously hectic lives. In this common sense approach book that recounts the various ways Catholics can develop an attainable prayer life and spirituality, Dr. Wicks focuses on daily events that lead us to prayer.

Utilizing the daily routines that we all have in common, the book makes a strong point to the reader to make everyday events, such as the morning commute, encounters in the business world, or even while preparing for the day while still in the morning robe preparing for daily ablutions to take time to focus on one’s inner life. Dr. Wicks offers three points that are critical to the development of a persons spiritual life, they are the development of these 3 factors: attitude, prayer and compassion. With the proper development and consideration of each one of these components all of us are capable of developing a healthy and bountiful spiritual life when we take the time to integrate these three levels of our daily routines into a perceptive understanding of how they relate to others, and God in a persons spiritual life.

Dr. Wicks is familiar to me personally, as a student at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary outside of Philadelphia, Dr. Wicks was a frequent visitor and member of the adjunct faculty. His methodology and suggestions for the proper cultivation of a spiritual life through ordinary daily events have assisted countless seminarians and religious focus on God through the ordinary things in often hectic academic environments such as seminary formational programs. Today as a layperson and a parent, the methods are just as true in a secular married lifestyle as they were in a formal educational situation. Dr. Wick’s book just goes to show that spirituality is not just for clergy and religious, but everyone that seeks a relationship with God and their fellow believers in a busy and frantic world.

This book is great for it’s ease of reading while revealing sound principles of psychology that should make all of us more spiritually and mentally sound and happy.