Is there such thing as "praying too much?"

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sorrowful1

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I don’t know how to put it; I also don’t know if there’s a specific word for it. Like I mentioned in the title, can we be doing such thing as “praying too much?” So much that just like excessive drug (medication) has side effects or negative consequences, perhaps, praying too much could stop working for its purpose?

Sorry, it popped up into my mind because when I’m free, the only thing I want to do is prayers and suddenly i thought " Aren’t you over doing it, perhaps? Wouldn’t God be tired of hearing you mumble and grumble all the time?". Yes, occasionally, I feel drained out – not by the prayers – but by my own emotional upheaval and I end up wanting to give up praying.

“There are people who never pray and yet, they sail smoothly in their boats” , I begin to think this way, and fortunately, I don’t dwell on this thought for long. I discard it because I can’t discard my relationship with God just because I see other doing differently.

How often do you pray?
 
I learned that you can “pray always”. It just means that you offer each moment to God and maybe offer aspirations throughout your day. You can pray too much if it means you give up important aspects of your life and duties to yourself and others. You are spending too much time devoted solely to prayer when it becomes a detriment to other aspects of your life. Maybe focus on other types of prayer like meditation or spiritual reading. Also, find other ways to occupy your free time that help you to grow as a person such as reading, exercising, being with friends and family etc. Those activities can also bring glory to god
 
1 Thessalonians 5:17 says “pray without ceasing”. We’re commanded to pray all the time. I think that if you are neglecting something important by way of prayer, you’re doing something wrong. One could easily act as such: your wife asks you to help her lift a couch into her living room. You can ignore her request and go pray or you can help her lift the couch. In my opinion, it would be wrong for you to ignore her request and go pray off quietly somewhere.

So yeah, I believe that there are circumstances in which it is sinful. This is just my opinion, though.
 
It’s not the amount of prayer but the quality. This is where a good spiritual director can really help. If a Catholic heaps on a hundred devotions and “prays without ceasing” but ends up with serious mental health problems because of them, something has obviously gone seriously wrong. Another Catholic can pray every second of the day, experience ecstatic joy, profound inner peace, and live a life of heroic holiness. Superstition is the “disease” of religion, when there is too much of some religious practice, such as prayer, but without the proper quality or benefit.
 
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@rosejmj @Neithan @drac16 I do attend to my other duties first!!! In no way would I dare to neglect them ; it’s particularly important because I live with my sister (from another mother). I help her with the chores around, and only after it’s complete, do I attend to my private devotions. But I should say, I can’t pray when i’d like to. So, that leads me to do it when I’m at a cafe ( such as at Starbucks, when the atmosphere is quiet), and I feel peaceful only after I’ve done it.
 
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Jesus, I give this vacuuming out of love for you and the salvation of souls. Jesus as I do laundry, I offer this to you for my faults and the salvation of souls. Much can be done during a day and pray and offer our duties. Is that praying too much? It’s the rhythm of life! Jesus, I give you every step as an act of love for you, every beat of my heart united with yours! Your will be done with me today. This is our hand to the plow, turning the soil in the vineyard. Pray is not just sitting down with a rosary in our hands, it’s taking very natural duties and applying the supernatural. This is our force for good, and at the end of the week what we put on the altar at church. God bless.
 
Yup! If you’re neglecting your responsibilities you’re praying too much! And if you’re committing sins of omission but excusing yourself because you were busy praying… that would be too much.
 
No, you can’t pray too much. There are ways in which you can do both - work and pray.
sorrowful1 said:
But I should say, I can’t pray when i’d like to.
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You can say short prayers repeatedly in your mind as you do whatever it is you have to do. I read that early Christians (some of them being the Apostles…) used a lot of short repeated prayers, like the prayer of the heart, because they had no books and abundance of prayers like we have today.
Maybe it is just that you think that the only prayer that counts is that when you feel relaxed and in the mood for it or when you are in a religious context (church, home altar) but you know that is not the case - God is omnipotent and Christ has renewed the whole world by His Resurrection so He is everywhere, He can hear you anywhere. Also the most powerful prayers are those when you don’t feel like it, because you give up your own will in order to pray and that is part of what we have to do in order to get closer to God - give up our will, or cut our will.
So praying while doing something (good) for someone else is actually a very powerful way of prayer even if you don’t feel like it. We cannot trust our guts and senses too much because of our fallen nature. This is why God inspired the Church to teach us what to do and to do it even if we feel otherwise or we think otherwise.
Put everyone else first, before you, and pray how you can in your mind and you can’t go wrong.
St. John Goldenmouth has 24 prayers or requests for the 24 hours of a day. Well I can’t do all yet because I have to sleep but having to worry and think about what to pray every time I notice another hour has passed really does brighten the day.
Plus God knows what you want and He can make time for you to pray like you would like to but you see a prayer you would like is not exactly what prayer is all about. Prayer has to be about God, about others, like Christ has done it. For others, not for you.
Giving is greater than receiving.
 
@Mary888 Simply one of the best advices and insights!! Thank you and God Bless!!!🙏🙏
 
There is no way you can pray “too much”.

But the “type” of prayer could be at odds with where you are in your life.

Sometimes you just need to pray by being conscious of that fact the God is with you while you go about your earthly life. Every now and then one or the other of you has something to say but much of the time you just enjoy the company.
 
@sorrowfull1 Thank you in return. Your appreciarion of my comment really did help me as well.
 
sorrowful1 said:
So much that just like excessive drug (medication)
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I love to pray. I structure my life around making time to pray. Praying the rosary is like a drug for me. More accurately it is like being in the bliss of a loving relationship. I love to experience communion with Mary and Jesus. For me it is unending rapture.
If the heart is in rapture the body is healthy. The heart radiates out to the rest of the body.
 
@Sundiver Indeed. Rosary prayers have become such an integral part of my life, I feel incomplete without it no matter what or how many other prayers I’ve done.
 
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I think you are doing very well. It would be wonderful if there were more people of prayer like you.
You should pray about this, and God will answer you.
 
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I find myself singing/humming gregorian stuff while saying the latin in my head sometimes.
The Amish that I deal with sing while working. Usually it’s only the women while cooking or baking.
Dominus vobiscum
 
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