Could use some advice about prayer

  • Thread starter Thread starter sydney28
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

sydney28

Guest
I have such a hard time sticking to a daily prayer ritual. I have such good intentions of praying daily, especially for my husband and my marriage (both need prayer desperately), and usually I do really well for about a week and then it fades away. Often it fades and I give up after fighting with my husband or when he makes me angry - which I know is the time I should be praying even more. I KNOW all this, but yet I don’t stick to it.

Also I sometimes feel as though all I’m ever doing is asking for things, and I get overwhelmed with all the specific prayer intentions that I have for my own life as well as all the other people or situations I am supposed to be praying for.

Does anyone have any advice on how to keep up with a prayer ritual each day and also how to make your prayers more than a shopping list of things you want or need?
 
Try going to Adoration at least once a week, stick to one hour.

I pray a decade of the Rosary from home to work, another one from work to the bank, another one from the bank back to work, and another one on the way home and the last one at home.

I pray the Jesus Prayer and the St. Gertrude prayer every time I pass in front of a Catholic Church after I do the Sign of the Cross.

Start with one Our Father, One Hail Mary, and one Glory Be every day.

But a prayer book set it where you will see it and take the time to pray.

God Bless.
 
The suggestion about going to weekly Adoration is a wonderful one! I would recommend Adoration, too.

You might also try praying to St. Rita of Cascia. I just recently watched her story on EWTN. She too, had a “trying” marriage… but loved her husband deeply and was very devoted to him. She rose above the challenges of her life (which included difficult in-laws, the murder of her husband and the deaths of their two sons) through prayer and a deep love and faith in Jesus.

One more piece of advice… just take it one day at a time. If you fall behind in your prayers one day, don’t be too hard on yourself. But pick up the next day… where you left off and try again. God bless. 🙂
 
If you can’t get into a church for adoration…
are there routines, like specific housework, or travel time , or… when you could just talk naturally to God for a few moments regularly, as to a dear Friend who loves you?
And if all you feel you’re doing is asking, maybe in those times think of something you, your family…are blessed to have, health? comfort, each other, whatever, certainly life! and take the monent to thank God.

Simplicity can be the best place to start, especially if you find forcing yourself into a strict prayer routine difficult!

Ask the Holy Spirit to pray in you, Trishie
 
Also, maybe start small- don’t overwhelm yourself with particular devotions, especially if you are new to all of this. Also, I agree with the previous posters- pray while commuting, etc.
 
Peter Kreeft has written two good books on prayer:

Prayer For Beginners

Prayer: The Great Conversation
 
Dear Sydney,

Several months ago I read *Prayer Primer: Igniting a Fire Within * by Father Thomas Dubay, and I implemented his simple meditation method as part of my morning routine. I started with maybe 10 minutes at a time and have worked my way up to 30-45 minutes. The time just flies by and I hardly notice it. I’ve noticed major fruits of this prayer in my daily life; it has changed me dramatically for the better, and I have a constant sense of peace that is rarely disturbed.

Here’s what Fr. Dubay suggests for meditation:
  1. Find a quiet place.
  2. Recollection of the presence of God: this does not mean you need to try to “feel” God’s presence; just acknowledge with faith that he is there.
  3. (name removed by moderator)ut from Scripture or other spiritual reading. (I am currently using My Daily Bread for this part of my meditation.)
  4. Response: conversing with the Lord about it; adoring, loving, praising, thanking, and sorrowing with inner, quiet words.
  5. Resolution: determine to do something specific beginning today about what we have been pondering; resolving to change and grow so that our actions may match our prayer.
 
Thank you for all the great suggestions 🙂 I hope I can commit to really making sure prayer is part of my daily life…and making it to adoration once a week is a good goal for me as well.
 
Good advice for all, but I would like to add,

always pray with the presence of God, in mind. That is, God is right there, dwelling within you.

Brother Lawrence’s book, “Practicing the Presence of God,” is wonderful explanation of how we should be praying to the God who is present at all times.

As St. Teresa describes it, not only is our Lord and King present, but his court comes along with Him. His court of course being the Blessed Mother, and all the saints.

God Bless
Jim
 
Jim makes a good point about recollection - being aware of the presence of God while you pray. Doing so is helpful - I’d dare say even crucial -to developing a close personal relationship with God. Jim suggests some good sources for learning more. You can find all of those writings for free online with a google search.

When I first started meditating, I began with the prayer below. Over time, I was given the grace of being able to recollect God’s presence quickly without having to start with this prayer. But this prayer got me going on the right track and I found it helpful. Thought I’d share in case it helps someone else.
An Act of Faith in the Presence of God
Click to expand...
O my God, my sovereign Good, behold me here in Your holy presence. I firmly believe that You are here present. I believe that You fill this place with Your sacred majesty. That You dwell in the heart of each one of my brothers. That You dwell in my heart as in a tabernacle, a living ciborium. You see me, You hear me, Your all-seeing eye penetrates into the most hidden recesses of my heart, You behold my most secret thoughts, everything in me is open to Your eyes, everything unfolded to Your divine gaze.
Click to expand...
Grant, O my God, that I may never lose the remembrance of Your holy presence, that it may ever remain deeply engraved in my mind and heart, that I may make this meditation profoundly impressed with the proximity of Your divine presence.
Click to expand...
 
Trishie said:
If you can’t get into a church for adoration…
are there routines, like specific housework, or travel time , or… when you could just talk naturally to God for a few moments regularly, as to a dear Friend who loves you?
And if all you feel you’re doing is asking, maybe in those times think of something you, your family…are blessed to have, health? comfort, each other, whatever, certainly life! and take the monent to thank God.

Simplicity can be the best place to start, especially if you find forcing yourself into a strict prayer routine difficult!

Ask the Holy Spirit to pray in you, Trishie
Click to expand...
Good response! At times of emotional upheaval and disturbance keep things simple and if necessary brief and short rather than upsetting onself further by even more burdens and self imposed unnecessary burdens.
(MariaVeronica)Then when all has settled down again, simply resume the usual routine without further kicking of oneself unnecessarily for sure.

With prayer, what works for oneself I think is the way to go and personally I keep prayer times geared to my lowest possible life denominator so that when troubled times come along, I am not trying to cope with prayer routines that were geared to my best times in life. If I want to add extra devotions or prayers in the emotionally good times, I do so - but I do not incorporate them into my overall daily prayer routine. This is what will work for me…and not everyone’s ‘cup of tea’ perhaps.

Sometimes disturbances can be so major that prayer may seemingly be impossible…The Lord sees all this and knows what is going on in our hearts and our great struggle and then “our general intention will suffice”. The Lord always knows that deepest desire deep in our hearts, which as we go about our day even if it is a terribly disturbed sort of day one can offer to Him prayerfully in passing moments…the aspirational prayer.

There have been times in the past when I have abandoned my prayer routine for some reason altogether and kept myself close to God in other ways. Then when all is settled again, simply gone back to my actual daily prayer routine. Simplicity with common sense and humility (for one, not asking too much of oneself thinking I can do better than I can) are great guides.

Barb:)
 
Dear Sydney -
Welcome to my world ! I just posted similar about a week or so ago.

Without reading upcoming replies, I will say this: Try starting your day with The Morning Offering. In the event that your prayer schedule is less than you’d like, The Morning Offering includes everything you do all day (prayers, works, joys and sufferings). So, you open your eyes, make the Sign of the Cross, and by saying this one prayer offer your whole day as a prayer to Our Lord. If you pass a Church with an open door, a quick trip in is ALWAYS pleasing to Our Lord. (how many times do we pass this opportunity up?)

The frustrations of life - family, spouses, work, whatever - are bound to take a toll on us, and recreation makes it EASY for us to sit back, relax and sadly, put prayer on a backburner sometimes. Start small, choose short prayers and let your regimen grow to accomodate your schedule - let’s face it, unless we’re in the religious/contemplative life with set schedules for work and prayer - every day is unique and filled with temptations and interruptions. Start small - and let your spiritual life grow big in God’s time.
Good luck to all of us on this one !
 
More great advice 🙂 Thanks to all…I’m grateful for discovering this site. It’s wonderful to share with others ways to draw closer to Christ!
 
sydney28 said:
More great advice 🙂 Thanks to all…I’m grateful for discovering this site. It’s wonderful to share with others ways to draw closer to Christ!
Click to expand...
…👍 …it sure is wonderful and a learning and growth curve…and also very informative on many matters Catholic.
I think that sadly often our spirituality is drawn from monastic and religous life and experience. As seculars we are in a different environment (the old nature or nurture thing)…without going into too much detail here, monastic and religious life is a totally different environment and hence given time nurturing in that environment does affect and even change the human psychology and how they are “conditioned”. Our environment and hence nurture presents wholly different necessary reactions often to different matters thart may crop up in our spiritual lives…whereas I think because we do draw on monastic and religious life spirituality often and spiritual texts and works perhaps written for them specifically, we can ask too much of ourselves as secular people living in a very fast paced society and with many demands on us nowadays and a totally differnet environment that will condtion us differnetly to the conditioning that takes place in religious and monastic life and therefore their particular environment. While common sense can take the gold from these monastic/religious type works, sometimes it is not easy to do so and make the transition from concepts written primarily for monastics/religious to our secular way of life and problems that can come along spiritually. Moving from a monastic cloister and religious life can be something of a shock to the system as moving from secular life to monastic/religious life can also be something of a shock to the system intially until one adjusts.
Community life really does offer support in many ways (also has problems and challenges). Also the spiritual aides in cloistered or religious life almost abound - and in many different ways - and often we lack these out here in the secular world. If we are going to evangelize successfuly one of the things we are going to need and to be able to communicate is a spiritual life that makes sense to people who do live in the world a secular life in a fast paced society obsessed often with the material.
We do now insight that we are not called to reject the world, nor materialities, (as that ‘old time sprituality’ advocated as necessary to spiritual grwoth) rather to get them into perspective and to be the leaven in society…and able to speak with the secular world in ways that are meaningful to them and their way of living. First we have to be able to do so ourselves and our experience will teach us and speak to us. “Who can be against us if God is with us”.
My take and hope it makes sense. Sometimes I know what I want to say but am unsure if it is expressed adequately.
Barb:)
 
My approach is to pray each day just before I eat breakfast. By having a regular occasion (time and place) it becomes a routine and so I don’t forget to pray (unless I also forget to have breakfast, which happens sometimes). I start with a short rote prayer (the “prayer before meals”) then just ask God for all my intentions. I summarise my intentions into broad categories 'cause then I don’t accidentally leave out anyone, it makes it easier to remember with fewer intentions, and God knows what I’m talking about anyway. Eg “Please look after all who are sick and injured and help them to get well”, “grant rest to all those who have died especially my family and friends”.
This 1 min prayer is a lot easier to stick to each day than trying to take on too much… when I have tried to hae a regular commitment to longer prayer (such as praying the rosary each day) I haven’t been able to keep it up. I can accept that this is perhaps the best I can do for now and grow from here. (Though I do acknowledge the exeprts advice that 15 minutes of prayer a day is best).
Greetings from a fellow Sydneysider, and all the best in your prayer life!
 
Regarding prayer, just keep it simple. See the following article on a simple prayer format:

http://www.silentinsight.com/a-simple-prayer-format/

The website, Silent Insight - Daily Catholic Meditations for Faith, Listening and Peace (www.SilentInsight.com), provide an easy way to pray daily via an email each morning with a simple concise prayer. Based on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, the prayers allow the individual to place themselves in the circumstances of the situation (ie. being healed by Jesus, obtaining site, seeing a miracle, etc.)

Peace,
Brian
 
sydney28 said:
More great advice 🙂 Thanks to all…I’m grateful for discovering this site. It’s wonderful to share with others ways to draw closer to Christ!
Click to expand...
Glad to hear it. And if anyone else agrees with Sydney about this site, (I know I do), why not let the Administrators/Moderators know this. I did, and think their hearing that from more of us would be a blessing for them.
 
The essence and origin of prayer is in the heart…and how we express the disposition of our heart (fruit of a prayerful heart) is however we may do so. And when we labour and are in darkness and cannot think one good thought perhaps for some reason, one prayer-type thought, then The Holy Spirit groans within us (St. Paul) on our behalf telling, as it were, The Father all that is in our heart that we are unable perhaps even to know ourselves consciously.
The disposition of our heart is a constant.
Set times or a routine of prayer are one form of prayer and an important one because at these times we consciously communicate with God spending time with Him talking to Him and listening for Him, but is not the only way of praying.

Barb:)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top