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Sacred Space is a prayer website which has achieved considerable fame since its foundation in 1999. It was created by two members of the Jesuit order, Alan McGuckian SJ and Peter Scally SJ, and was managed by the Jesuit Communication Centre, Dublin, Ireland, until June 2008. It is now being maintained and developed by a dedicated Sacred Space office at 36 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin.〔("Work and pray at Sacred Space", ''Irish Jesuit News'', July 29, 2008 )〕 The site is updated daily, guiding users through a ten-minute session of prayer centered on a passage of scripture. ==History== The Irish Jesuits were among the first to realize the potential of the Internet for prayerful reflection.〔(Botelho, Jude. "Church on the Internet", ''Communication as Mission'', National Consultation at Ishvani Kendra, Pune, ed. by L. Stanislaus, Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Delhi, 2007, ISBN 978-81-8458-006-8 )〕 Editors of print magazines like the ''Sacred Heart Messenger'' and ''Studies'' find a considerable time lag between the writing of an article and reader response. With Sacred Space it is a time-lag of only a few minutes. The notion of a website about prayer came to the two Jesuits when they were working in communications. McGuckian and Scally noticed that increasing numbers of office workers sit at a computer for hours every day, often doing repetitive work. They reasoned that people work better if they break that routine every now and again; and prayer is one way of breaking the routine.〔("Sacred Space", ''The Messenger'', Irish Jesuits, December 2006 )〕 People as far away as the Arctic Circle and Australia log onto the site. Speaking in ''The Tablet'', Jan 18, 2003, Scally stated, "A person at the computer has a sense of privacy and intimacy; comfortable, upright, and attentive, subconsciously screening out all distractions, he concentrates on the screen -gazes in fact on that screen. What better description of the attitude of attentive listening to God?"〔 The appeal of the Internet for prayer is perhaps understandable, not only because it provides the user with the privacy needed for personal prayer, but also because the multi media approach to prayer, now offered by many websites makes prayer more stimulating than a mental exercise.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sacred Space (website)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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