How much time do you spend in prayer each day?

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phoebecat3

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My prayer life needs help badly!!! Do you pray every day? If so how many times and for how long? Do you pray an entire Rosary or pick a mystery for each day?
forgive these silly questions-I am a Protestant and just curious.
Thanks
 
Welcome! I was a Baptist hope we can be helpful.🙂

1 hour of quiet time just listening…Usually early morn…I get up at 5am

½ hr. Morning Offering, prayers/devotions… novenas

½ hour of Scripture…sometimes more.

The Chaplet to the Divine Mercy.

1½ hours praying the Rosary – all four mysteries: Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious and Luminous…. sometimes more if there is a special intention.

About an hour for daily Mass on EWTN- TV about ½ hour if I’m blessed enough to actually get to daily Mass.

Examination of Conscience in the evening…anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes…
I spend the rest of my time here on Catholic Answers forums…course after my housework is done…I’m a stay at home grandmother…
 
Wow!!! Annunciata, that is wonderful. Puts me to shame.

I spend about 15-20 mins. on the daily gospel reading and morning offering in the morning when I wake up.

Decade of the rosary with the kids before school.

Grace for meals.

Night time prayer of thanksgiving and Act of Contrition with the kids.

I usually spend about 15-30 mins. with some good spiritual reading before bed—currently the journal of Elisabeth Lesseur.
 
Hi there and welcome! 🙂

I started out with five decades of the rosary and the chaplet of Divine Mercy. 45-90 minutes, depending upon how distracted I am. It’s the best part of my day!

I sometimes sing the chaplet of Divine Mercy or Ave Maria while I’m working on chores. And I’ve noticed that I’m saying a lot of little quick prayers throughout the day. Something will cross my mind and it’s just a few words. If I see something on the news, for instance I’ll pray, “Oh, Dear Jesus, please help those parents! Blessed Mother, comfort them!”

You can pray the rosary any way that you want to. You can pray a single decade or five or all fifteen or twenty decades. (some people do not use the newest “Luminous” meditations)

You can even say a single prayer - “The Lord’s Prayer” we all know from Sunday School, right? You could simply say that over and over again, thinking about what the words mean as you say them. There are depths to be plumbed just in that prayer, alone. Jesus himself gave us that prayer and like everything else he did in his short ministry that was documented, he gave it to us for many reasons.

And you can ask questions. What does that mean, God? What should I do? I don’t understand this. Why is it in my life?

You can tell God that you’re happy, sad, mad, that you don’t understand something, that you don’t know what to do, that you don’t even know what to pray for or how to pray. But, you’re here anyway. And you want to listen, but you’re not sure how. He knows your heart.

You can say, “I’m not even sure I believe this, but you told me to do it, so I’m doing it and I’m trying to believe. Help my unbelief.”

And you can ask the Holy Spirit to fill your heart and to pray for you, if you don’t have the words.

I hope that helps, some. I spent 48 years as a protestant and then a new-ager and pagan and I’m only two months into the realization that I am Catholic, so I hope that none of this is wrong. But, I know you’ll get responses from people a lot more knowledgeable than I am. 🙂

Good luck and God bless you!
Elizabeth
 
My prayer life is what I chose to improve over that past 12 months. I was used to Weekly Mass, and perhaps midweek Mass once in a while. I said intermittent prayers out of request and out of thanks. I knew I needed to do more once I started listening to Catholic radio.

All of that changed a little over a year ago. This is my daily routine now, although it does vary depending on where I am.

Morning Offering
Daily rosary (54 day rosary novena)
Bible study preparation (meet once a week)
Novenas throughout the day (I keep the booklets in my purse and grab them as soon as I get a minute)
Prayers for the unborn (4 kids for nine months)
Reflection in the evening and thanks for the day
Read a short story of the life of one Saint as I go off to bed ( I have a book that has 365 entries)

During the day I tell anyone who calls me about God now. I always find a way to include God in the conversation. It is amazing how that always works out. I offer to pray for anyone that tells me of one of their challenges.

Also I listen to Relevant Radio often as I go to work (part time) or as I go to the store. I also listen as I go online to CA.

I made a promise last year to myself that if a secular program became unchristian that I would turn it off. You guessed it, I can’t watch TV anymore hardly ever. When you do that you have more time for prayer.
 
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ElizabethJoy:
Hi there and welcome!

…I hope that helps, some. I spent 48 years as a protestant and then a new-ager and pagan and I’m only two months into the realization that I am Catholic, so I hope that none of this is wrong. But, I know you’ll get responses from people a lot more knowledgeable than I am. 🙂
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Elizabeth Joy…sounds like you have a wonderful prayer life! Everyone is different! I’m so proud of you and no none of it is wrong… :blessyou: Annunciata:)
 
Start small- don’t try to have the same prayer life as the mystics, like St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross did- you’ll burn yourself out FAST if you do it that way.

Maybe you could buy a prayer book, and read the prayers out of that, or pick one psalm for the day, and read it and meditate on it. It took me a long time to develop personal prayer- I was so turned off of it from my past religious upbringing.
 
I am a grandmother, working 40-50 hours a week at my job in the parish, married to a semi-retired man who divides his day between work, golf and softball. Kids and family are in other states, and we have very few social obligations. DH does not do much formal prayer, but spends an hour in contemplative prayer each night.

I pray Liturgy of the Hours, morning, evening and Office of Readings (usually in the middle of the night), an hour of adoration in the chapel, during which time I do lectio divina. walk each morning and say the entire rosary. usually make it to morning Mass, never latched onto the DM chaplet, besides that is my busiest time of day.

MIL is 84, recently widowed, prays most of her waking hours, alone or with EWTN, cenacle etc.

our situation is entirely different than a young mom with kids at home or a younger person juggling school and job, or building a career. Do what you can for your state in life. The important thing is to be faithful in a small commitment, rather than failing to keep a grandiose commitment.

for families, recommend grace, Our Father, Morning offering together, and at least Hail Mary, Guardian angel prayer, if not a decade of the rosary at bedtime, plus grace at meals. if your prayer time is limited, please pray at least once a day as a family.

after long and bitter experience I can tell you that if you give one hour to God each day, the other 23 hours will miraculously expand so you can do everything required of you, it is the ultimate time management too. NEVER attempt to raise teenagers without recourse to the Rosary, it is too dangerous.
 
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Annunciata:
Welcome! I was a Baptist hope we can be helpful.🙂

1 hour of quiet time just listening…Usually early morn…I get up at 5am

½ hr. Morning Offering, prayers/devotions… novenas

½ hour of Scripture…sometimes more.

The Chaplet to the Divine Mercy.

1½ hours praying the Rosary – all four mysteries: Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious and Luminous…. sometimes more if there is a special intention.

About an hour for daily Mass on EWTN- TV about ½ hour if I’m blessed enough to actually get to daily Mass.

Examination of Conscience in the evening…anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes…
I spend the rest of my time here on Catholic Answers forums…course after my housework is done…I’m a stay at home grandmother…
Click to expand...
Wow :tiphat:
 
I say my morning prayers before I get ready for work. My first rosary is after lunch, I go to my car and say the rosary there. I send up a prayer every afternoon at three o’clock. I try to fit in another rosary in the evening. I pray all day …the Our Father, Hail Mary,Glory Be and the Fatima Prayer,I love those prayers and are never far from my heart and soul.

I have found that instead of letting my thoughts wander around get me into sin I pray and my Holy Posse will keep me straight.

The rosary is my favorite prayer.:love:
 
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puzzleannie:
after long and bitter experience I can tell you that if you give one hour to God each day, the other 23 hours will miraculously expand so you can do everything required of you, it is the ultimate time management too
Click to expand...
This has got to be one of the best kept secrets of positive consequence for maintaining a daily prayer appointment with God. I believe that part of this phenomenon of God’s economy is that you are more apt to sift out the non-essential and do what is required of you. Then God does His multiplication of loaves miracle for our efforts directed at serving Him. Praise God!
 
Hi to all,
I pray three times a day. Before go to work, Novena and a small prayer, then I read one Chapter from the Bible. Again in the evening I say Novena and a small prayer. Final prayer will be said before go to bed with Novena and a special thanks prayer for that day.
In Christ,
selvaraj
 
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