Do you have a personal prayer schedule?

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d_floyd77

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I’m curious to hear some examples of your prayer lives. I work nearly 11 hours a day, with drive time. Sometimes 12. I have no kids and little responsibility outside of myself though, which I’m sure many here have busy family lives. Do any of you have a schedule of prayer times you have worked out? I’d like to hear if you do as I am trying to carve out more time for prayer in my life.
 
I’ve made it part of my morning routine. I leave for work at 8:20, so my personal deadline for starting my morning prayer/meditation is no later than 7:45. Since I tend to get absorbed in prayer and lose track of time, I’ve been late to work if I start later than that. 😊
 
Do you pray the office or have any specific prayers you say at that time?
 
I’ve been using the simple meditation method Fr. Dubay explains in his book, Prayer Primer:
  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 the book My Daily Bread by Fr. Anthony Paone 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 your actions may match your prayer.
I’ve noticed tremendous spiritual growth since I’ve been doing this daily for the past few months.
 
I would suggest making a real effort at keeping a regular time and place for prayer, as others have noted. Start simple, you need to learn to walk before you can run. If you fall off you schedule, don’t despair or give up, start anew. Ask for Our Lady’s help and direction. She is our model of faith and prayer. The Rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy during long drives works for me. Be careful to pay attention to driving as you can become absorbed in the meditations and miss your turnoff or worse!
 
I leave for work at about 8:15 AM most days. My dh & I say Morning prayer from the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, then the Morning Offering and a Prayer for Peace. On the way, I say 10 Hail Marys for some intentions and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. When I get home, we say Evening Prayer from the Little Office and a prayer for priests. Before bed, we say Night Prayer, and Prayer for Spouses, Prayer for Daily Neglects, and a prayer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that I got from Water on this site about a year ago. Of course, it doesn’t always work out this way, but we try to do it daily. BTW, the prayers we say are from the Gold Prayer book, published by Queenship Publishing, one of the best prayer books I’ve ever used. I also do spontaneous prayer.

Peace,
Linda
 
3bar17 said:
I would suggest making a real effort at keeping a regular time and place for prayer, as others have noted. Start simple, you need to learn to walk before you can run. If you fall off you schedule, don’t despair or give up, start anew. Ask for Our Lady’s help and direction. She is our model of faith and prayer. The Rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy during long drives works for me. Be careful to pay attention to driving as you can become absorbed in the meditations and miss your turnoff or worse!
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3bar has good advice here. It’s important to make some sort of regular schedule for yourself and stick to it, but if you miss a day don’t give up.

I became lazy with my meditations early on skipping days here and there, then several days in a row, until I learned in Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer how important it is to make a daily effort. Since then, I’ve been far more consistent and wouldn’t miss a day for anything. I’ve learned to see the direct correlation between prayer and the fruits of prayer in my daily life.
 
Thanks for the great advice everyone. I’m definately going to start over, small. I like to say the Magnificat morning prayer and I need to carve out a set time for the Rosary. I have said the Rosary when driving to work before and I found that it really got me ready for the day.
 
First off I’m retired it is not so hard to find the time. But I still have a busy life and I believe if I did work and have a family at home I would be able to fit my daily responsibilities around my prayer life. At present I pray the Office; starting when I rise which can vary between as early as 5 and as late as 7am; with the morning pray and Bible readings for the day. I pray the OOR at noon and often I am not home in the afternoon but if I am I will pray the Daytime prayer then…Evening pray at 5pm. I pray the rosary in the evening…read the Bible and Night Prayer before I go to bed. I love to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet and or the Rosary during my hikes as well.
 
I try to have some time in the evening just before bedtime for prayer, meditation and reading.

Since I have about a 1/2 hour commute to work, I pray the rosary on the way to work and pray the divine mercy chaplet on the way home. When my prayers are done I then turn on my mp3 player and play catholic educational/inspirational material over the car radio. Some of the materials I have purchased, others I have downloaded for free off the internet. Praying the rosary and the chaplet daily for the past year has had a very positive imapct on me.

One side efect of this that I never would have imagined, is it makes me want to get in the car so I can drive to work 🙂

Stillkickin
 
Hi “Floyd”. I am a full time caregiver, to an elderly parent. I no longer work outside my home… but my days are still extremely busy.

Even so, through the grace of the Holy Spirit… I have been able to maintain and even nurture my prayer life. My prayer “schedule” goes something like this… (although, I do allow myself plenty of flexibility… due to the uncertainty of my mother’s needs).

Morning… I pray the Chaplet of St. Michael and personal prayers for my family.

Afternoon… I pray the Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.

Evening… I pray the Memorare, Evening prayers and personal prayers.

By “personal prayer”… I mean, spontaneous prayer… or conversation with God. I do most of the talking, 😊 and He listens. (I think maybe I need to work more on listening to Him, though).

All of these are interspersed with “seasonal” prayers. Example, this June… I hope to find the time to say a Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And I pray before the Blessed Sacrament… whenever possible.

Hope this helps. God bless. 🙂
 
d_floyd77 said:
Thanks for the great advice everyone. I’m definately going to start over, small. I like to say the Magnificat morning prayer and I need to carve out a set time for the Rosary. I have said the Rosary when driving to work before and I found that it really got me ready for the day.
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Good move in common sense! Start small and work things into your own circumstances. Probably most of us do miss our prayer times at times and most culpably - the way to go is not to start kicking yourself and upsetting things, simply start again. “Saints are sinners who dont give up”.

The thing about living in a communal setting with regular prayer times by the clock, is that when one perhaps does not feel like going to prayer or the duties at hand need to be finished, the community then really does get you to prayer, simply because it is where everyone else is going and you are supposed to be there too.
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    I thought a non Catholic married chaplain I was speaking with a long time ago had a good system going.  He had a couple of young children and the rule in the house was that when Dad got home from work, he had a quiet cuppa and then went to his office and was to be left alone for a half an hour (prayer time)..............and then it was quality time with children and his wife for dinner and an hour or so or whatever after if Dad had something to attend to in his office, if not it was quality time with Dad until bed time........then once the children were read to and tucked in, it is quality time with he and his wife.
There is what I thought was a good book to wander through “A Mother’s Rule of Life” - Amazon and while it states " mother’s" really it is a great book to work out a rule of life and prayer schedule for any lay person at all no matter gender (with a little common sense applied) - especially perhaps a busy lay person. Not everything in the book appealled to me, but it did often give me a clue or trigger to work something out that suited me and my own way of life. I treat this book as my “clue and trigger” book. Rather than set out an actual rule and prayer schedule, it shows how to look at one’s own life and its needs and demands and guides to working out your own rule of life and schedule. Of course, it may not have any appeal at all to some.

I found it a quite helpful little book. The author has also set up a website with various information and to answer any questions.

I think it is important that any sort of prayer schedule is structured around duties perhaps rather than clock times when one drops everything to go to prayer…unless of course going by the clock is the way that works for you in your own circumstances. Dropping things at a certain time may work in a communal setting and specifically religious communal settings…but for a busy lay person may not be a practical move in common sense. St. Albert said that common sense is the guide of all the virtues.

“A Mother’s Rule of Life” - Amazon

Mother’s Rule of Life Website
 
d_floyd77 said:
I’m curious to hear some examples of your prayer lives. I work nearly 11 hours a day, with drive time. Sometimes 12. I have no kids and little responsibility outside of myself though, which I’m sure many here have busy family lives. Do any of you have a schedule of prayer times you have worked out? I’d like to hear if you do as I am trying to carve out more time for prayer in my life.
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during the year (Sept-May) I work normally 10 hrs a day, in busy times like 1st communion, Lent, more like 12 hrs a day w/o days off. the only way I assure I will pray daily is to do so as soon as I wake up, even before coffee (LOTH), then eat, do PT, dress, walk (rosary) which in any case I want to do before 8, or 9 at the latest when it gets too hot to walk outside. since I work later at night, I try to get to the chapel an hour or so before lunchtime, eat, then get to work. I am generally too tired at night for more than night prayer, but I have usually said evening prayer with whatever class is going on that night.

trouble is, for 5 months of the year MIL is here, so I have absolutely NO private or quiet space at home, so I end up going to work earlier, going first to chapel if I have missed am Mass, then to the office.

If I wait until later in the day to pray it won’t happen. I frequently wake at night (low blood sugar, muscle aches or whatever) and have learned that this is a call to prayer, which is when I do Office of Readings (Vigils) and meditation. I need the chapel time for lectio divina and adoration, at least a few days a week, or my life and work suffer.

in the summer I get home earlier, have time for evening prayer, eating and swimming since it gets dark so late
 
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