By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
A lifelong fascination with bookmaking and a desire to serve led Bill Woster to take charge of his Knights of Columbus council’s prayer book ministry 13 years ago. Since then, Woster has greatly expanded the ministry, producing more than 36,000 prayer books to be distributed in the Diocese of Dallas and beyond.
Woster came into the role of bookmaker in 2012 as a member of the Knights of Columbus Council 5052, which had developed and distributed prayer books for years, Grand Knight Omar Mediano said.
“Those prayer books started way, way back,” he explained, “and to be honest, nobody could remember the earliest they started getting developed.”
Upon discovering that the prayer book ministry needed a leader, Woster immediately knew he was interested in taking on the responsibility. Afterall, he had always harbored a fascination with the process of bookmaking, even as a child.
“Seventy years ago, when I was say 8 to 10, one of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon after school was to take a little tiny Superior printing press,” he said, “and print up a little message or something.” He recalled manipulating the printer’s “rubber ink types” to create a print, then knocking on doors to try and get a nickel sheet for his product.
As leader of the prayer book ministry, Woster lives out that boyhood dream of bookmaking daily in service to the local Church, which benefits from the tens of thousands of pocket-sized prayer books he has distributed over the past decade. The goal of this bookmaking ministry, he said, is encapsulated in its motto: “Changing lives through prayer, one prayer book at a time.”
From start to print
Since Woster took on the task of producing and distributing prayer books, the ministry has evolved and expanded considerably. What began with the book “Life Journey Prayers” grew to include another book and then another, until he had produced around 20 titles, including some in Spanish.
Several of Woster’s books are tailored to meet the prayer needs of specific groups. “Hope, Strength, and Peace in Loss” is a book for those in mourning; “Mothers Journey Prayers” and “Fathers Journey Prayers” are made with parents in mind; “Come to Me” is tailored to children and “Teen Journey Prayers” to teenagers. Other books focus on specific devotions, such as to the Blessed Mother, the Holy Spirit, and Christ in His Passion and Death.
With all of these books, Woster has been involved in each step of the creation process—from conception to assembly to print. He begins by picking prayers for the pages.
“You say a little prayer,” he said, “that the Holy Spirit will inspire the Google search engine to give you the material that can go in the book.”
Once Woster finds the prayers he would like to include, he moves them to a document on his computer, checks for any copyright issues, and edits the content for clarity, before laying out the pages and selecting art for the cover. After all this, he sends the pages to his sister, Dorothy Brandwein, to review for edits. With her OK, he can begin the process of creating the physical copies: printing, stapling, pressing, and folding.
Then, Woster gives them away—to parishes, schools, ministry groups, hospitals. He charges only the barebones cost of printing, which for the largest book is currently about 60 cents; the time he spends researching, editing, and assembling the books is a gift given free of cost.
Promoting prayer
Once created, Woster’s prayer books flow into the wider community like a bifurcating river, splitting and spreading: to chaplains who gift the books to hospital patients; to schools that gift them to parents; to parishes that gift them to faith formation students. The bookmaker receives orders for hundreds of books at a time to be shared in communities throughout the diocese.
Mediano shared that Council 5052 regularly gets requests for books from local parishes and ministries but also from groups in different parts of the country. The more books the council distributes, he said, the more people request them. The grand knight noted that the prayer books have reached as far as Mexico, where the knights gifted them to locals during a wheelchair mission in November 2024.
“I took 100; and for every wheelchair that I gave out, I gave the family one,” Mediano said. “Everybody wanted one; so, I literally ran out right away.”
Closer to home, Erma Perez, a youth minister at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church, said she requests about 250 books from Woster each year for her Mary Immaculate confirmation students. She has seen the students consult the prayer books as tools for memorization and reflection during the confirmation retreats.
“Some of the students, they don’t know all their prayers,” Perez said, so when they go to confession, “they at least know that they have the book that can help them out.”
After 13 years of prayer book ministry, Woster remains passionate about the work of spreading prayer. He knows that for many readers, those books become a part of their daily prayer lives—the first thing they pick up during a lunch break or the last thing they put down before bed.
“I consider working on these books perhaps the best use of my time I have, other than spending it with my wife of 54 years,” Woster said. “Prayer changes lives.”
To learn more about ordering prayer books for your group, contact Bill Woster at [email protected].
Cutline for featured image: Bill Woster, a member of the Knights of Columbus Council 5052, has produced more than 36,000 prayer books during his 13 years leading the prayer book ministry. (AMY WHITE/The Texas Catholic)
