Tips for a better prayer life

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greenqueen

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Hello everyone. It is my wish to have a better prayer life. What is the best way to do this? My alone time is usually filled with scrolling through Facebook or playing games on my phone.

It’s difficult for me to sit and silently focus because my mind is constantly thinking. I’m not ADD or ADHD. When I do sit down to pray, all of my prayers are so jumbled in my mind and are racing around. So many times I just say “Well, God, you know what’s in my heart” and leave it at that.

I will pray an occasional rosary. I’d like to say other prayers, though, too. I would love to set aside at least an hour a day, but I don’t know what to say.

Is any of this making sense to anyone? Please share what helps you focus on your prayer life. Thanks!
 
I like to “set the mood” for prayer by altering my setting at home. It keeps my mind from wandering too much. I love to play Gregorian chants in the background, and make the room a bit darker and light a few candles. Also love incense. It’s amazing what playing with your senses can do for your concentration - think sound, light, and scent. I also veil during my private prayer which helps further separate that time from my normal daily grind.

As for prayers, the rosary is a great start. You could try the Divine Mercy chaplet and maybe some novenas to keep you going. There are great little books out there with prayers like the Angelus and Anima Christi, which are a couple of my favorites and are easy to learn. Collecting prayer cards featuring some of your favorite saints or apparitions or which feature prayers on subjects you wish to improve on can be useful too! When it’s your prayer time, just break out your rosary and these prayers and maybe a notebook of collected prayer requests or ideas, and that’s certainly enough to fill an hour (or more.) 🙂
 
Rather than asking what to say, you should be asking how to listen better. The next step would be to seek out meditative prayer. Fr. Ed Broom at St. Peter Chanel in So Calif. for instance. But it really helps to have someone who knows how to do the spiritual exercises to help you overcome distractions, dryness, etc. You need to read a certain amount of scripture before you start to pray then ask God to help you meditate on the passage you have just read. This is very incomplete, but it gives an idea for teh process. Read and memorize teh first three verses of Psalm 1.
 
Since you already mentioned that you spend a lot of time on your phone, how about using it as a tool to help you with prayer?

I use an app called Laudate to help me. It’s free and aside from it being an aid to prayer, it is akin to being a Catholic Swiss army knife.

I attached a screen shot from “My Prayers”, which is a very versatile and customizable part of the app. It allows you to copy, paste, and edit prayers so you can develop your own prayer regimen. I group together prayers for various times of the day. Further down the page I group rosary mysteries, chaplets, novenas, etc… You are limited only by your imagination.

If you don’t want to “roll your own” there are literally hundreds of prayers included, and they are searchable by key word.

This app has really helped me, as I also have problems staying focused, and do horribly with meditative prayer.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
The other suggestions are great - praying in a candle lit room with incense and sacred music really helps me focus, and the Laudate app is fantastic. I use it for Liturgy of the Hours.

I wouldn’t get too hung up about not knowing what to pray. God knows our innermost desires better than we do. When I don’t know what to pray, I turn to the Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

A monk friend of mine said that the Jesus prayer is the only prayer any Christian knows how to pray - every other prayer is just an extension of “Lord have mercy”
 
It is very simple…pray.
Make some time every day for prayer.
Start out slowly and added more prayers as you go.
 
Since you have a hard time sitting and focusing, it would be helpful if you had something to focus on, like devotional reading or Scripture reading. And if you read the prayer out of a book, that had pictures and was interesting to read.

Over the last couple of years I’ve come up with specific sets of prayers, some prewritten and some of them I wrote myself, and I say them at particular times during the day. For example, one set of prayers is for when I get in the car for the first time during the day. Since it is rare for me to not get in the car at least once, this set of prayers usually gets said there.

When I go to Adoration, which I try to do about twice a week (sometimes it’s more and sometimes less), I have specific prayers I say there, and then some open time where I can choose a prayer to say. I usually try to make a “prayer plan” before I go so I know what I will be saying, such as one Divine Mercy, one Rosary, one Adoration prayer, and read reflections from my prayer book.

After Communion I have other particular prayers I say.

The rest of my prayer life is just me talking to God/ Mary/ the saints throughout the day and giving thanks, asking for help or direction, or whatever.

I do my prayers this way because I too have difficulty with a million thoughts all fighting for priority if I just sit there with no plan in mind and nothing to do.

Some other things I’ve done in the past include praying while I walked. I am not doing that now for various reasons, but it is a good way to kind of burn some distraction energy on walking and seeing trees, rocks, dogs etc that are part of God’s creation while you are simultaneously praying to him.

Reading Scripture is also a good way to pray, especially if you’re in one of the more exciting story parts of the Bible like Kings or Esther.
 
I really like the Angelus and adoration. I also like to say a novena to different saints. Try darkening the room, that helps me.
 
Three wonderful aids to prayer:
  1. Adoration
  2. Adoration
  3. Adoration.
Miracles occur there. Peace is found there. Love abounds there.

He is waiting for you.
 
Make sure you are really giving daily time to prayer. A set time works. Set aside all disractions. Do some deep breathing if your mind is racing. Realize that God is right there listening intently to you. Adore, thank, ask. Then listen. Say the Rosary slowly realizing Mary is right there listening. It doesn’t matter what you pray as long as you keep your appointment with God faithfully so he can fill you with love and mercy. Quieting the self, meditation, and contemplation get easier the more you do them.
 
greenqueen said:
My alone time is usually filled with scrolling through Facebook or playing games on my phone.
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I had to quit Facebook for this reason. It simply doesn’t mesh with me being a good Catholic.
greenqueen said:
It’s difficult for me to sit and silently focus
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Might I suggest trying to pray the Liturgy of the Hours? I find having it on the phone is a great contrast to social media and the like. You can use the iBreviary app for free. It comes with both the modern Liturgy of the Hours and many other useful prayers in the app. Then you don’t have to just sit silently, but you can read and recite.

Edit: There’s no need to start out with all the prayers. You could try exchanging Compline (prayer before the night) for your evening prayer or Lauds (morning prayer) for your first prayer of the day. There’s no right or wrong speed.
 
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I would suggest first starting out small. Don’t start with an hour, take a few years to work up to an hour!

Your mind is a mess (like mine!), it needs training in being still. If you were teaching a couch potato to run, you would not suggest he start with 26 miles, you would say, try alternating walking and running for a very short period of time each day, right? Same with prayer.

Pick something short you can stick to, and stick to it. Then lengthen the time by a few minutes, or add something at another time of day, etc. Just start with something manageable, and when you are used to it, add another manageable thing.

The most important thing is to stick with what you have decided. After adding a few things, check to see that your prayer life is balanced, that you pray am and pm prayers, examine your conscience, and include spiritual reading, and just gradually add in things you are missing.
 
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Try adding small things throughout your day and week that you can reasonably do and try increasing it as time goes on. Try to set concrete goals that you can measure yourself against.

For example If you are not already going to Daily Mass try going a few times a week. One week you can try going once or twice and try adding more days as you go along.

You say that you pray the Rosary occasionally. So try praying it a few days a week. On the other days try praying at least one or two decades. Praying the Rosary doesn’t take too long. Chances are it takes you at least 15 mins to go to work or school. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy only takes about 5 minutes.

You can also do small ejaculatory prayers throughout the day such as “Jesus Son of the living God have mercy on me a sinner” or “Jesus I trust in you.”

I hope your prayer life goes well. I will be praying for you! 🙂
 
It’s good to have a lot of suggestions, and you can pick and choose what works or makes sense for you.

Lately I have made a habit of praying unplanned short prayers at times through the day, and trying to be mindful of Jesus’ presence there with me. By virtue of his incarnation, he shares our humanity, and through his resurrection he is still human and is closely connected to us. Jesus spoke of us being in him, and he in us (for instance, in John 17), which I take rather literally. The way I see it, he is right there by my side, like a friend and helper. He is with me when I am praying, when I suffer, when I am tempted, when I resist temptation, and even, to my sadness and his, when I sin.

This doesn’t answer your question about spending an hour a day in prayer, at least not directly, but who knows, it might be an attitude that you could cultivate in your own method of praying.
 
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Something that helps me is to pause for a minute and quiet my mind before I start praying.
Otherwise my lips are moving, but my mind is thinking about the zillion things I have to do that day.
 
Learn to listen to Holy Scripture. It takes learning, I have found, to listen to God, and to listen for God. “Reading the Bible” is not what I mean, if “the Bible” is read as if it were any other book - it is not. We must listen, and listen very carefully, with heart open to hear. When the soul begins to hear, then the soul begins to believe. And that is when lives change.
 
Our parish priest encourages us all to have a regular, daily prayer life. He preaches on this regularly. He recommends starting with 20 minutes a day, so I would take that as a guideline. It is much better to pray for a short time daily than have an erratic prayer life. God bless you! Don’t forget it is the Holy Spirit praying within us, so wanting to pray is a movement of God in your soul.
 
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Did you think about adding something from the Divine Office? If you’re a morning person, Lauds at dawn is a great way to start the day. Or end the day with Compline
 
Start small. Make a plan for prayer and stick to it. It’s hard to pray with all the distractions in the world, but just spend the time you committed to regardless of how distracted you might be. It’s your love and effort that counts, not how well you pray. Also try to spend some quiet time in mental prayer and spiritual reading, not only vocal prayer. Over time it should become easier to focus in prayer and if you are consistent it will become a regular part of your life and bring you closer to God
 
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