What does your prayer life look like?

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Hawkeye916

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What does your prayer life look like? How often do you pray? What kind of a prayer schedule are you on? I find myself all too often skipping out on prayer time because I just simply don’t know what to pray about. However I will occasionally read the daily readings and pray on that, or say a rosary or chaplet of something, but I don’t have any sort of daily schedule, and I would really like to start something. What do you guys do?
 
Hawkeye916 said:
What does your prayer life look like? How often do you pray? What kind of a prayer schedule are you on? I find myself all too often skipping out on prayer time because I just simply don’t know what to pray about. However I will occasionally read the daily readings and pray on that, or say a rosary or chaplet of something, but I don’t have any sort of daily schedule, and I would really like to start something. What do you guys do?
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I and many others here would say, and encourage, the Liturgy of the Hours, specifically, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, and as far as possible, Night Prayer. I cannot speak for others, but for me, it’s for the following reasons.

Liturgical. The Liturgy of the Hours is the official Prayer of the Church, the voice of Christ singing the eternal hymn of praise to the Father. Mandated for clergy and religious, but warmly recommended to laymen. Even when prayed by laity and alone, it remains a public, liturgical prayer, an exercise of our baptismal priesthood and you are united with the whole Church in prayer.

Variety. There is sufficient change and variation over a four-week cycle, generally, and over the course of the liturgical year, giving sufficient variety and freshness to the prayer while remaining in a familiar format.

Scriptural. The core of the Hours is the Psalms, and it is permeated by canticles and scripture readings, so you get a good dose of Scripture as part of your prayer time.

Substantial. It’s not a quickie, but is also not extremely long. Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer take about 15 to 20 minutes each on the average. Night Prayer takes about 5. For laity, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer are not extremely burdensome commitments.

Structured. Because the Liturgy of the Hours asks for a certain discipline (specifically, respect for the truth of the hour), it lets you structure your day around prayer.
 
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My prayer life is dismal at the moment, but I used to pray rosary, chaplet, and daily readings every day.
 
It is good to start with a certain routine and staying with it and building on it. There are many ways to pray, and you may want to start with reading the Gospel of the day and pondering it.

As I have been a Lay Carmelite for many years I am in the habit of praying Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. I also use, during the day, a Scriptural Rosary that is on youtube to meditate on the mysteries of the rosary with.
I notice that even when I don’t feel like starting to pray, I just do, and then am drawn into it. What a wonderful calming effect it has!

Many Catholics who are not in Lay Orders do this as well.

You can develop your own good habits, and keep reaching for the goal of “Pray always” as it tells us to do in the bible.

There are also short prayers we can do such as “Jesus I trust in You” while we go about our daily chores.
 
Morning and Evening Prayers. The rest is not very structured atm, just now and then an extra akathist, paraklesis, but not regular.
Preparing for Communion is also a rite in itself in the East with prayers that sum up half an hour, an hour before and then after the prayers are shorter.
 
I start my mornings with coffee and a rosary. I’ve been praying the Christmas novena this Advent, so that tends to be my afternoon prayer. In the evening I recite the Holy Spirit chaplet, and then the evening prayers from the Little Office. I pray the Shema right before bed. I also have an app and pray whatever Novena (if any) is suggested for the next nine days (so I’m currently praying the Holy Family novena along with my evening prayers).
 
I do about 45 minutes of prayer in the morning before work. That includes Morning Prayer from the Divine Office, the Rosary, various other prayers, and some meditation. I go to Mass at noon and often work in about 20 to 30 minutes of prayer around it. I say about one minute’s worth of nightly prayer because I am so tired at the end of the day. I often do some spiritual reading in the evening. All this happens on a “good” day. There are “not so good” days as well…
 
I try to pray every night before bed thanking God for all I have and asking Him to bless my family and those who need it.

Outside of that I find it hard to pray. I find it very intimidating to think of talking to God Almighty, and I always get caught between the two ideas of either praying very formally, or talking to God in a personal way, and I usually end up embarrassed. I find it hard to pray naturally.
 
Salibi said:
My prayer life is dismal at the moment, but I used to pray rosary, chaplet, and daily readings every day.
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I’m in the same boat except that I still maintain a routine. Nevertheless, my prayer life is a huge mess. It’s hard to explain. Let’s pray for each other, and everyone in this situation. :pray:t3:
 
I still class myself as fairly new to the faith, I’m learning to accept God into my heart. I pray the Rosary and if I can find time will do the divine office. I struggle coming up with my own prayers. I can’t think of what to say and how to pray effectively. I hope I can pick this up.
 
There are so many good books on Prayer. I’m currently reading Peter Kreeft’s and strongly recommend it for anyone. I’m also reading Jacque Philippe’s Time For God, for more advanced pray-era but also excellent. Both ave helped me get back to the basics of prayer as intimate conversation with God.
 
I typically do Matins, Lauds and a rosary in the morning and Mass 2-4 times weekly. For Advent and Lent it’s daily Mass and I try to add more Hours.
I’m a morning person and have a hard time praying afternoons/evenings because I’m frazzled and tired.
 
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