I can't concentrate when I pray

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masondoggy

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It is so frustrating. I’m terrible at prayer. 😦

No matter how much I try to keep my mind on meditation, whenever I pray the rosary or the Divine Mercy chaplet, my mind just wanders all over the place. It feels like I’m wasting my time.

Does anybody else struggle with this? Do my prayers still “count”?
 
I can absolutely relate. I can’t pray for two minutes without my mind wandering. I confessed this one time recently because I felt so horrible about it. I told Father that I know that prayer is a discipline and something I need to work at, and he supported me in this by saying that I needed to just take it slow and work at becoming more focused in my prayer life. He suggested using a technique such as lectio divina (An ancient form of meditation on scripture where one reads “very slowly through a text until a word or phrase ‘lights’ up and attracts the reader. The text is then laid aside and the phrase is repeated in the heart…without analysis.” (Martin Smith, The Word is Very Near You) ).

I still have a hard time focusing, but I try every time to pay more attention. Life is just so hectic sometimes that it crowds out anything else, prayer included.

No - you are alone in this. I’m right there with ya!

~Liza
 
Couple of things:

Don’t stop praying! God loves us to speak to him and He listens, just as we listen to our children even if they ramble or don’t speak in full sentences. Do your best to be calm and focused, but realise we’re humans and easily distractable even at the best of times.

If it’s specific concerns that are distracting you (worrying about kids, work, money) - offer up the prayer for those particular intentions. It’s funny how announcing it before each decade allows you to ‘put it to one side’ and concentrate on the prayer better.

If you’re just feeling a bit ADD, then take a minute to ‘tune in’ before starting the prayer. Take a few deep breaths, repeat some little phrase to yourself a dozen times or so - ‘Thy will be done’, ‘Come Lord Jesus’, ‘Mary, pray for us’ or something.

Then focus on something visual - maybe a picture or statue you have in the room, a tree outside the window or focus on a colour (imagine yourself and everything in the room turning that colour).
 
When I get distracted while praying, I offer the distractions to God in reparation for my sins or for the conversion of sinners.
 
Don’t worry about it.

This could mean that your prayer life is changing and God desires to develop your prayer life and is easing you from attempting to hold the reigns during prayer and desires that you let the Holy Spirit lead you rather than think you are in charge of your prayers. Prayer is where we are transformed in Christ Jesus and so you must allow the Holy Spirit to lead you in His own Ways. Spend time just being quiet in prayer and being with God and if thoughts come into your mind that is perfectly natural, no-one can avoid that, but simply remember yourself in the Presence of God.

It could mean that you are busy in life and simply have alot to think about and when that is the case the mind does overtime and prayer is always difficult during these times. If that is the case just offer your life as it is with all that is going on as a prayer to Jesus and place yourself and your prayer life in total abandonment to Jesus and in His Hands.

It could mean you are entering into a dry period in your spiritual life and these are necessary for spiritual growth. Don’t worry about that either. In dry periods we are closer to God than we can imagine and God stretches the soul and expands the heart in these periods and we are completely unaware of the great work God is doing in our souls and infact it feels as though we are backsliding prayer life wise when infact we are growing.

It could mean that you are heavily attached to something in your life that God does not see as good for you. This attachment may be brought to the forefront of your mind during in prayer so that you may discern this attachment and resolve to ask God to help you with it. God will help you to detach from whatever it is.

You can only discern which of these it is and beyond that time will tell which one it is so don’t be in a rush to work it out.

Whatever the case is persevere in prayer because in any case we must always pray but we should never worry!🙂

I will keep you in the Living Prayer of my life.
 
I do too. I don’t worry about it, I just try to get back on track.

St Therese used to fall asleep sometimes when she prayed, and she said that parents love their children awake or asleep, and God will love us as well.
 
Try to use visual rosaries or pictures with words to keep the mind and mind’s eye from wandering. Hope it helps.
 
masondoggy said:
It is so frustrating. I’m terrible at prayer. 😦

No matter how much I try to keep my mind on meditation, whenever I pray the rosary or the Divine Mercy chaplet, my mind just wanders all over the place. It feels like I’m wasting my time.

Does anybody else struggle with this? Do my prayers still “count”?
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These forms of prayer are personal devotions. I bring this up in order to assure you that there is no wrong way to pray while reciting the rosary or divine mercy prayers.

What I do is incorporate my “distractions” into my prayer. If my mind wanders to my spouse, I offer the next Hail Mary for him. If I begin to think of a financial need, I do the same, and so on. You can even offer up a Hail Mary for your favorite sports team, if your mind lands on that. 🙂

By bringing such things into my prayers I take their power over me away and give them to God. It helps me, anyway. 😊

Also, you may want to pray the prayer of the Church by praying Morning and Evening Prayer in a form designed especially for lay people.

You can go very formal with it by using Shorter Christian Prayer or you can subscribe to Magnificat, a monthly “magazine” that contains a very short version of Morning and Evening Prayer as well as the daily Mass Readings, short bios of the saint of the day, meditations on the Gospel reading and more.

I’m sure others could recommend other approved version of the daily office, but these are the ones that I like using most.
 
lizaanne said:
I can absolutely relate. I can’t pray for two minutes without my mind wandering. I confessed this one time recently because I felt so horrible about it. I told Father that I know that prayer is a discipline and something I need to work at, and he supported me in this by saying that I needed to just take it slow and work at becoming more focused in my prayer life. He suggested using a technique such as lectio divina (An ancient form of meditation on scripture where one reads “very slowly through a text until a word or phrase ‘lights’ up and attracts the reader. The text is then laid aside and the phrase is repeated in the heart…without analysis.” (Martin Smith, The Word is Very Near You) ).

I still have a hard time focusing, but I try every time to pay more attention. Life is just so hectic sometimes that it crowds out anything else, prayer included.

No - you are alone in this. I’m right there with ya!

~Liza
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I love lectio divina. It’s really nice…to the OP, I also suggest it. For me, it’s easier because it’s a lot easier for me to SEE the words on paper, it’s easier to remain focused. 🙂 🙂 good luck! Oh, and don’t worry…your prayers still count. 🙂 Just offer it up. 🙂
 
This happens to me all the time. To make matters worse, I’m slightly narcoleptic, so falling asleep while praying isn’t very fun either…
 
I have had this problem as well, but found that when my mind first starts to wander, I immediately focus on the passion of Christ and I do that the whole way through the Divine Chaplet.
The rosary I have one of those prayer cards with the description of the mysteries of the rosary, and that helps me focus more on what I am praying about.

I pray that it gets better for you. You are making the effort and trying ,and God knows where your heart is. ❤️
 
I have the problem too but remember praying isn’t always about talking, sometimes when I have problems focusing I meditate on the life of Christ (like a previous poster said) and let the Lord speak to me.
 
masondoggy said:
It is so frustrating. I’m terrible at prayer. 😦

No matter how much I try to keep my mind on meditation, whenever I pray the rosary or the Divine Mercy chaplet, my mind just wanders all over the place. It feels like I’m wasting my time.

Does anybody else struggle with this? Do my prayers still “count”?
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This happened to me all the time, before I learned Centering Prayer.

Read Father Keatings instruction on Centering Prayer.

thecentering.org/centering_method.html

BTW, don’t pay attention to the flack this post will get from folks in here. 😃

Jim
 
I would suggest trying, if you haven’t already, different prayer positions to find one that works for you. For me, it’s kneeling; I find the pressure on my knees and the need to balance helps keep me focused. If you’re worried about falling asleep, perhaps try praying whilst walking (slowly and meditatively) in a set pattern around your house or bedroom? It means you have to keep your eyes open, but motion may help ease the “fidgets” that come from inactivity.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
This happened to me all the time, before I learned Centering Prayer.

Read Father Keatings instruction on Centering Prayer.

thecentering.org/centering_method.html

BTW, don’t pay attention to the flack this post will get from folks in here. 😃

Jim
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He seems to advocate centering prayer as a separate discipline from lectio divina. Could you explain to me how you integrate the two together, or how one uses centering prayer to improve lectio? Thanks.

-Rob
 
RobNY said:
He seems to advocate centering prayer as a separate discipline from lectio divina. Could you explain to me how you integrate the two together, or how one uses centering prayer to improve lectio? Thanks.

-Rob
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Actually, in his book, Intimacy with God, centeringprayer.com/intimacy/index.htm

He explains the stages of Lectio Divina and where a sacred word from Scripture, is repeated and reflected on. Eventually the person is drawn into resting in God.
"The monks of the Middle Ages called these different levels the “four senses of Scripture.” The senses of Scriptures are not four ways of discussing a particular text on a rational level. They are four levels of listening to the same passage. The teaching presupposes that Scripture contains a mysterious dynamic that moves one to ever deeper levels of understanding the word of God. These are the literal, the moral, the allegorical, and the unitive (sometimes known as the anagogical). Modern exegetes focus primarily on the literal sense of Scripture, seeking out the philological meaning of the words and the cultural background in order to understand how to interpret these words. This research is valuable for ferreting out more precisely what God was trying to say through the sacred writers. But that is not the purpose of Lectio Divina. Divine reading as the monks conceived it was not done for the sake of information but for insight. It was not to learn something but to encounter Christ. A friendship was developing.
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Before printing was invented, there were only a few manuscripts available. Monks would read one book of the Bible such as Isaiah or one of the gospels for a whole year. They were expected to learn the psalms by heart so that they could run blocks of Scripture through their memory all the time. When they gave time to Lectio, it was something special. They would start reading the Scripture and when something struck them, they would stop, reflect on the text, and then pray over it, asking God for the good things they read about.
They would move from discursive meditation to affective prayer or aspirations of the will, then to repeating the same aspiration over and over again, and finally they would experience resting in God."
Intimacy With God, Chapter 5 Part I.
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Bold is my emphasis. This is essentially, what Centering Prayer is and where it came from.

Jim
 
masondoggy said:
Well, at least I’m not alone, lol…🙂
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I would worry if I didn’t have this problem, Satan only attacks those he doesn’t have control of., he leaves the lost alone to thier own demise. An enjoyable book to read, which isn’t about how to pray, but enjoyable just the same, is by C.S. LewisThe Screwtape Letters there are parts you will truly relate to about being destracted while praying.
A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.” At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging and humorous account of temptation – and triumph over it – ever written.
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Jim,

It seems to me that the part you have bolded are the oratio and contemplatio steps in lectio divina. Are you saying, then, that the place centering prayer has in lectio divina is, more or less, where oratio and contemplatio are? (I understand, of course, that contemplation is a gift, and that our prayer opens us to it, and does not produce it.)

I’m interested in learning more about the affective prayer/aspirations of the will, which in my reading has been only touched on slightly. Can you point me to parts in Fr. Keating’s works which could help me? Thank you, and God bless you Jim.

-Rob
 
RobNY said:
Jim,

It seems to me that the part you have bolded are the oratio and contemplatio steps in lectio divina. Are you saying, then, that the place centering prayer has in lectio divina is, more or less, where oratio and contemplatio are? (I understand, of course, that contemplation is a gift, and that our prayer opens us to it, and does not produce it.)
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Yes, Centering prayer is from the “meditatio and contemplatio” portions of Lectio. However, just as in Lectio Divina, it is not the repetition of the sacred scripture that is contemplation, but rather the grace given to us by Jesus, that brings us to contemplation. We are merely making ourselves available to Christ.

When Fr Keating and Fr. Basil Pennington were asked to begin dialog with those of Eastern Religions, it was because many young people were leaving the Catholic Church and finding a spirituality in the East. Fr Keating and Fr. Pennington learned that the meditation that was found in the East, had a rich tradition within the Catholic Church, but it was pretty much constrained to monasteries and convents. It was within Lectio Divina, but few lay people ever heard of it. So, out of this, they came up to the realization that contemplation was available to everyone, all we needed do is open ourselves to it. In Lectio Divina, the repetition of a sacred word from Scripture, in meditatio, is reflected upon and repeated. The intention wasn’t so much the words themselves, but rather, the intention of the will toward Christ. So, Centering Prayer was nothing other than using a sacred prayer word, from Scripture or some devotion, as a tool to stay focus one’s intention, and that is being in the divine presence of Christ.

Father Keating’s Web-site has many of my favorite books on line. “Open Mind Open Heart,” is my favorite. “Intimacy With God” is another. Also, his articles are very informative.

God Bless
Jim
 
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