Praying at Midnight

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SunsetMemories

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I have come across articles online stating that praying during midnight and at 3 am is very beneficial and helps us win victory over evil. Does anyone pray at midnight and what are your experiences? Also if any one of you pray, what prayers do you pray and have been effective for you? I am aware that praying can be done at any time, but I have always been curious about others’ experiences.
 
3 am is said to be the time when our bodies are at their lowest ebb, when most natural deaths occur and when most evil is committed.

This is why monastic orders have or had the Office at that hour in the old sevenfold Liturgy of the Hours.

It is often for many reasons, some that make sense, some that do not, the hour when my day, without any alarm or other call, often or even usually begins .
 
I don’t intentionally pray at those hours, but I often wake in the middle of the night and cannot sleep, and so I pray.

Sometimes I just lie there and pray the rosary in the dark.

At least once, I turned on the light and prayed part of the Liturgy of the Hours – Compline from the night before, or the Office of Readings of the coming day. I can’t remember which. 🤷

I found praying the Liturgy of the Hours in the middle of the night to be a profound experience. It didn’t change my life or anything, and I wouldn’t make a regular practice of it ( I sleep so poorly as it is), but on the nights when I am WIDE awake, those prayers are like a welcome friend.

And as Rosebud said, there are cloistered communities of monks and nuns who rise in the middle of the night to pray, and then go back to sleep.
 
Gertabelle said:
I don’t intentionally pray at those hours, but I often wake in the middle of the night and cannot sleep, and so I pray.

Sometimes I just lie there and pray the rosary in the dark.

At least once, I turned on the light and prayed part of the Liturgy of the Hours – Compline from the night before, or the Office of Readings of the coming day. I can’t remember which. 🤷

I found praying the Liturgy of the Hours in the middle of the night to be a profound experience. It didn’t change my life or anything, and I wouldn’t make a regular practice of it ( I sleep so poorly as it is), but on the nights when I am WIDE awake, those prayers are like a welcome friend.

And as Rosebud said, there are cloistered communities of monks and nuns who rise in the middle of the night to pray, and then go back to sleep.
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And it is a time when the world outside is “empty” of daily activity. Which does matter for prayer.

Do they still call it among police etc. “the graveyard shift”? I love it.

I have become nocturnal in my old age! When I was fitter, all my housework got done in those hours too.

But there is a deep peace then before the birds wake,
 
I usually try and complete my rosary before midnight. I find myself waking for ‘bodily functions’ at 3 am, so I’ll often start the new days rosary then. Don’t usually make it past the preamble (the Creed, Our Father, 3 Holy Mary’s part) before I’m sleeping again.

The other thing I do is have my single decade rosary around my left wrist all night. It may seem strange, but for a long time I had disturbing dreams, when I started this, they went away.
 
Since I retired, I watch TV until almost 3AM…then I say my prayers before going to bed. They take about 20 min. of prayers from a booklet, naming everyone I know who is sick and has died, then ending with one decade of the rosary for whatever Mystery I’m on.
 
I usually go to bed around midnight.

I did once this Easter pray at 3am. I set my alarm and it was very difficult, I prayed one prayer.
 
I often wake up in the night, as my body gets older I have to answer the call of nature once or twice. I usually pray for the Holy Souls.
 
I live alone and enjoy the solitude. But, my prayers at any hour of the day are flooded with distractions.

I pray the rosary by following a priest who had recorded the different sets of mysteries. I am getting a little impervious to the remarks he makes, which I have heard over and over. I often find myself a prayer or two behind, because of sleep or distractions.

The priest is usually half-way through the Lord’s prayer before I mentally catch up with him. It is hard for me to just “recite” phrases like “Hallowed be thy Name.” That is such an important part of the prayer, but the priest just rattles right along.

That’s one thing I actually like about Mother Angelica’s recitation of the Rosary, that she does not speed through the prayers.

The “Glory be” prayers are so important to, to thank God for the revelation of that mystery that we contemplate in each decade of the rosary.

If praying at midnight “works” for anybody, then do it.

In the Lord’s prayer, I tend to emphasize, too, the “forgive us our trespasses…” not just as MY transgressions, but collectively as everybody’s transgressions. “as we forgive those who trespass against us” – I have to beg inclusion into the collective merit of others as WE ALL forgive those who trespass against us, not just as I personally forgive others – which I feel I don’‘t do nearly enough. I’m riding on others’ coattails on that prayer. I am begging for the mercy of others who can use their spiritual gifts to forgive the greatest of hurts.

Jesus prayed at night and, as I take it, sometimes through the night. He needed the mental solitude, too.
 
The Coptic Agpeya (Book of Hours) has a Midnight hour.

Regarding 3am, I remember hearing (from a movie though, based on a true story) that it is the demonic witching hour, mocking both the Holy Trinity and 3pm, the hour on which Our Lord died on the Cross.
 
My husband and I have an hour of adoration at 3 AM one day of the week. I like it.
 
There is a line of thought that before the Industrial Revolution, most folks enjoyed “polyphasic” sleep patterns- getting up for an hour or two in the middle of the night before returning to bed.

I guess some folks used the time for different purposes, including prayer.
 
St. John Vianney.

"When you awake in the night, transport yourself quickly in spirit before the Tabernacle, saying: ‘Behold, my God, I come to adore You, to praise, thank, and love you, and to keep you company with all the Angels,’ "
 
I don’t know about the “witching hours” idea

But we often do adoration in the middle of the night.
Want to get odd looks? March a family of little ones into an adoration chapel in Jammies at 2 am…
ah the joys of homeschooling…

And one time I was pulled over at 2 on my way home from adoration. Try telling a cop you have just been at church at 2 am on a Saturday night…
 
I’m a night owl kind of person. I developed the habit from my mother and her family, who loved to sit up till the wee hours. My hobbies, other life experiences and some of my jobs have further encouraged this, so sometimes it is quite natural to pray at midnight or in the wee hours just as I might have a snack, browse the Internet, or catch up on work at that time. Plus it tends to be much quieter and less interruptions at that hour.

I have also gone to the local 24-hour Perpetual Adoration chapel (which I’m fortunate to live near, as most churches are not “open 24 hours” for decades now) from time to time in the late night hours. Sometimes other people are there, but sometimes I am all by myself sitting alone in an unlocked building and have to pray to Jesus for a little extra confidence, although the neighborhood is quite safe. Being all alone with Jesus in the dark deserted night is thought provoking and feels…different.
 
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