Can I make an Improvement in my prayer life?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dallas_r
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
D

dallas_r

Guest
I just wanted to see how often you guys pray.

I pray some morning prayers, a noon prayer, the Rosary, sometimes the Divine Mercy, sometimes the St. Michael chaplet, and evening prayers. I also say grace before meals.
Anything I can do to improve? I am a student so I don’t have time to where I can do the Divine Office. If you could share how your prayer life is like too, it would be much appreciated. Thank you
 
I’d say don’t overload yourself with devotions, no matter how good they might be. If you pile on devotions and try to keep them all, you will defeat the purpose of doing them. 🙂

Try to take a little time to just sit and listen to God–just you and him with no words in between. Let the Holy Spirit pray for you while you think about nothing at all. A couple of minutes a day at first and see how it goes. God wants us to take time for silence and listening with our hearts more than he wants words out of us. 😉
 
Perhaps God is calling you toward Contemplative Prayer ?

You’ll know by the doors that He opens to you.

Jim
 
You might like the Rosary with just one decade at a time if your time is limited. Or an occasional Novena during summer, spring breaks or at Christmas-or just because. As Della said, don’t overwhelm yourself. Moments of silence really do count. All of us could improve in our prayer life. Peace.
 
Short aspirations are good also.

Such as: “Jesus I trust in You”

“Blessed Mother, …Pray for me”

Especially if a feeling of anxiety comes over you…you can say with faith a short aspiration.

Peace,

Dorothy
 
The reading of scripture, Lectio Divina, is considered to be prayer when one reads the scripture and then meditates on it.

I’m currently on a St Francis de Sales binge, and so I would strongly recommend his celebrated text Introduction to the Devout Life, although there are plenty of more contemporary guides as well if you’re not inclined towards older prose. I love him and think he’s an incredible writer.
 
Great suggestions so far! 🙂

If I may add one: pray Morning and Evening prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours.

Really easy with the iBreviary app, for example. 🙂

I’ve been praying the LotH daily for over 20 years. I can’t imagine not praying it.🙂

As a matter of fact, I think that it is the absolutely best part of my Franciscan vocation (we are required to pray the LotH daily).
 
Della said:
I’d say don’t overload yourself with devotions, no matter how good they might be. If you pile on devotions and try to keep them all, you will defeat the purpose of doing them. 🙂

Try to take a little time to just sit and listen to God–just you and him with no words in between. Let the Holy Spirit pray for you while you think about nothing at all. A couple of minutes a day at first and see how it goes. God wants us to take time for silence and listening with our hearts more than he wants words out of us. 😉
Click to expand...
This^^.
Consider that God may want you to be still for a moment and listen to His voice.
We don’t impress Him with prayers…we impress Him with love.
 
My confessor said once, don’t pray so much that you don’t stop to hear God’s reply! Della has given us all some very good advice…listen to her!
 
Luigi_Daniele said:
Great suggestions so far! 🙂

If I may add one: pray Morning and Evening prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours.

Really easy with the iBreviary app, for example. 🙂

I’ve been praying the LotH daily for over 20 years. I can’t imagine not praying it.🙂

As a matter of fact, I think that it is the absolutely best part of my Franciscan vocation (we are required to pray the LotH daily).
Click to expand...
Thank you! I also have an app for that called Laudate, has prayers, LotH, daily readings, a daily bible verse with some explanation, and more.
 
Della said:
I’d say don’t overload yourself with devotions, no matter how good they might be. If you pile on devotions and try to keep them all, you will defeat the purpose of doing them. 🙂

Try to take a little time to just sit and listen to God–just you and him with no words in between. Let the Holy Spirit pray for you while you think about nothing at all. A couple of minutes a day at first and see how it goes. God wants us to take time for silence and listening with our hearts more than he wants words out of us. 😉
Click to expand...
Thank you. This reminds me of a story someone shared on here before. It was a man who would stop by to his parish every day, enter the pew, and just kneel looking at the Tabernacle. The priest asked what he was doing and the man simply replied: “I look at God and God looks at me.”.
 
Dallas,

Mass as often as you can would be the priority I feel.
Don’t aim for blocks of prayer, aim for constant conversation/ prayer with God. And perhaps a set of Rosary mysteries.
If you can do part or all of Divine Mercy Chaplet that’s great too.

The prayer of the Church, the Liturgy of the Hours can be downloaded on IBreviary. Maybe aim for praying the morning or evening or night prayer.

Prayer is an intensely personal conversation with God. It’s fine to stick with the Our Father and Hail Mary and just be with God.

May God bless us on our journey home.
 
In addition to structured prayer (rosary, LotH, et cetera) try to remember prayers of thanksgiving throughout the day. Perhaps thank God for a beautiful morning or say thanks for the gift of understanding a new concept in class.

If you remember that prayer is conversing with God then it becomes natural to add these short interjection throughout the day.
 
I pray whenever the Holy Spirit puts it on my heart. It can be as simple as saying a prayer for a guy that held the door open for me. It has been my experience that the best prayers are done spontaneously. I don’t put a schedule on when to pray or how long I pray for.
 
dallas_r said:
I just wanted to see how often you guys pray.

I pray some morning prayers, a noon prayer, the Rosary, sometimes the Divine Mercy, sometimes the St. Michael chaplet, and evening prayers. I also say grace before meals.
Anything I can do to improve? I am a student so I don’t have time to where I can do the Divine Office. If you could share how your prayer life is like too, it would be much appreciated. Thank you
Click to expand...
I see you do pray a lot, and that is a good thing. If you can manage then you can continue with it. There is no one way of prayer that is good or bad, but rather depends on the person concerned. Also whether you are a busy person too. Being a student probably you would be occupied by your study and that may restrict your time for formal prayer. You have to wisely juggle your schedule well.

However, the prayers you mentioned are seemed to be memorized/verbal prayers, though of course you can meditate on them too.

You may want to try to listen to God talking to you because prayer is a time spent with God. Expect God to talk you too. 🙂

There are good advice from the earlier posts, like listening to God and maybe you can try that.

As for me, besides all the routine prayers which I don’t count as they are part of my life, I do set a time for personal prayer which I call my ‘quiet time’. It can be a struggle sometimes but one has to make a decision to be discipline to be faithful to it. It include reading the word, reflect on it and listen to God what is the message for me that day.

God bless.
 
Reuben_J said:
I see you do pray a lot, and that is a good thing. If you can manage then you can continue with it. There is no one way of prayer that is good or bad, but rather depends on the person concerned. Also whether you are a busy person too. Being a student probably you would be occupied by your study and that may restrict your time for formal prayer. You have to wisely juggle your schedule well.

However, the prayers you mentioned are seemed to be memorized/verbal prayers, though of course you can meditate on them too.

You may want to try to listen to God talking to you because prayer is a time spent with God. Expect God to talk you too. 🙂

There are good advice from the earlier posts, like listening to God and maybe you can try that.

As for me, besides all the routine prayers which I don’t count as they are part of my life, I do set a time for personal prayer which I call my ‘quiet time’. It can be a struggle sometimes but one has to make a decision to be discipline to be faithful to it. It include reading the word, reflect on it and listen to God what is the message for me that day.

God bless.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much!
 
dallas_r said:
I just wanted to see how often you guys pray.

I pray some morning prayers, a noon prayer, the Rosary, sometimes the Divine Mercy, sometimes the St. Michael chaplet, and evening prayers. I also say grace before meals.
Anything I can do to improve? I am a student so I don’t have time to where I can do the Divine Office. If you could share how your prayer life is like too, it would be much appreciated. Thank you
Click to expand...
There is a traditional Catholic “path” on which prayer develops / grows / deepens. Prayer is a process of growing intimacy with God, knowledge of God and oneself. Fr. Jordan Aumann has a section on this path of developing prayer in his book “Spiritual Theology,” which is on-line. The chapter on “Grades of Prayer” begins with this:

12 Grades of Prayer
We are indebted to St. Teresa of Avila for the clearest and best classification of the grades of prayer. Her concept that the intensity of one’s life of prayer coincides with the intensity of one’s charity is based on solid theology and was confirmed by St. Pius X, who stated that the grades of prayer taught by St. Teresa represent so many grades of elevation and ascent toward Christian perfection.(1)
These grades are (1) vocal prayer, (2) meditation, (3) affective prayer, (4) prayer of simplicity, (5) infused contemplation, (6) prayer of quiet, (7) prayer of union, (8) prayer of conforming union, and (9) prayer of transforming union. The first four grades of prayer belong to the predominantly ascetical stage of the spiritual life; the remaining five grades are infused prayer and belong to the mystical phase of the spiritual life.

Note the advancing sequence, 1 to 9 “grades” of prayer. It sounds like you want to move into “mental prayer”, or [Christian] meditation. Before doing so, you might want to “check” whether you have been praying vocal prayer - the many “formula prayers” of the Church - well. It is easy to recite prayers that are memorized, or written in front of us - but it involves effort and concentration to pray vocal prayers well. Also, it may be that you have begun meditation already, if you have been praying vocal prayer well, and the Rosary “well”, meditating on the Mysteries of the rosary as you pray…

St. Teresa taught that vocal prayers require of us two things:
  1. attention, and
  2. devotion.
Fr.Aumann discusses all this in his book - the link is:
traditio-op.org/biblioteca/Aumann/Spiritual-Theology-by-Jordan-Aumann-OP.pdf

To get to the part on prayer, [the Table of Contents is no longer hot links - I think it used to be - you have to get to “Prayer” the longer way], do a word search on that site for the text, “12 Grades of Prayer” and it should scroll you down quickly to the part I’m talking about.

He has a lot to say about prayer - be patient, and read attentively to the first part, on “Ascetical Prayer”, especially “vocal prayer” and “meditation.” If you are serious about growing in prayer, and follow the path, hang onto your seat. The journey is amazing.

I’ll be interested to learn - if you read up on the subject - how you respond… Please let me/us know.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top