An Altar In Your Heart:

Meditations on the Jesus Prayer

The Rt. Rev. Robert B. Hibbs

foreword by Mary C. Earle

In the early 1990s Jennifer and Charles Garrett (St. Luke's) formed Stillpoint-by-the-Sea, a retreat ministry. In 1993 when Jennifer was looking for a retreat speaker, she contacted Bob Hibbs (then at Good Shepherd, Corpus Christi) who suggested the topic of the Jesus Prayer. The retreat was quite meaningful and magical; luckily Charles recorded it. The retreat talks were made available as a set of audio cassettes.
Jennifer and Charles thought the message was so inspirational that it should be a book. With much encouragement, Bob Hibbs agreed and, with the expert editing of Marjorie George, it was made into a book by Stillpoint (now Stillpoint Media). The book became a selection of the Episcopal Book Club and sold over 1500 copies. In 2016 Jennifer and Charles thought it was time for a reprint and presented the idea to Bob and Nancy Hibbs. They agreed but unfortunately before too much was done, Bob fell ill. At this point Elizabeth Cauthorn (St. Marks/Material Media) was asked if she might like to produce and publish the book's 20th anniversary edition. Material Media jumped at the chance.
Jennifer, Charles, Nancy and David and Lisa (Nancy and Bob’s kids) met with Elizabeth to discuss the project.
1. The 20th anniversary edition An Altar In Your Heart: Meditation on the Jesus Prayer is what came out of the discussions.
2. A small jewel of a book (designed by the award winning designer Andréa Caillouet of New Orleans)
3. A beautiful foreword by The Rev. Mary C. Earle which not only confirm the impact of this ancient prayer but is also a tribute to The Rt. Rev. Robert Hibbs.
4. Reflection questions for each of the 6 Chapters which makes this suitable for a 6 week study.
5. The simple yet powerful Pen and Ink drawings by Luc Freymanc before each chapter
6. A CD with 3 excerpts from the original retreat (The family especially wanted readers to hear Bob).
7. All this while retaining Marjorie George’s excellent editing which captures Bob’s unique style and retains the freshness of the retreat.
In addition to the print book, Stillpoint Media is rereleasing the entire original retreat under the title: The Jesus Prayer Retreat: Meditations on the Jesus Prayer on discs (CD and MP3). Click link to order.