In January,
I began praying the rosary daily. At the
end of the day, I light a candle, some incense and mediate on the
mysteries. As I started to really enjoy
my daily time with God, I added three prayers of intercession involving my
friends the saints (Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Jude Thaddeus and Saint
Antony of Padua). Then I became more
ambitious and added an ongoing novena to my prayer time. Recently, Father suggested that after I pray
formal prayers that I stick around and talk to God about my day and just sit
for a moment in silence to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Slowly my time with God has increased and now
it’s a habit that I look forward to everyday.
At some point in your spiritual life you will have to make time for daily
prayer and you have to be intentional about it and not leave it to chance
otherwise it won’t happen. I have found
that having a range between 6PM-9PM (depending on my daily schedule) to pray has
really helped me keep consistency.
Sometimes I am really excited about prayer and other times I don’t feel
like doing it, but I still keep my appointed time and ask God to help me pray
when I am terribly distracted. Whether I
start with the desire to spend time with God or not, by the time I end my
prayer time I always feel so much more at peace and more connected to God. I heard that it takes twenty-one days for
something to become a habit, so commit to that short period and begin slowly spending
ten minutes with God until it becomes a common practice.
The Rosary: I have found that starting my prayer time
with the rosary, helps me transition from my daily stresses into the realms of
God. I love feeling the beads in my
fingers and feeling the progression from one mystery to the next. Each decade I
offer it up for a specific intention and while I pray for others I enjoy
contemplating each biblical passage. In addition,
praying the rosary really helps me move the focus from self and to think of
God, Mother Mary and of others' needs.
Formal
Prayers: I have a horrible memory, but
luckily I have a little book with many formal prayers composed by saints in addition to many of the popular Catholic prayers.
Some of my favorite prayers are composed by saints! I find them beyond beautiful and when I pray
them I usually ask for the intersession of that particular saint, when I do
this I feel like I am praying in a room with an army of friends (smile).
Sacred
Scripture: God speaks to us through His
word so it’s super important for me to immerse myself in scripture. Sometimes I just read some of my favorite
verses and mediate on their meaning.
Other times I read through the Bible just to learn and get to know more
about God and our faith. There’s many,
many ways of using the Bible in personal prayer. Recently I started a study on the power of love
and I get to examine more closely a passage from the Epistle to the
Corinthians.
Talking to
God: This is my favorite because it requires no materials and it can be done anytime
anywhere! As my morning prayer, I usually
love talking to God in my car when I am heading to work. A few months ago I got pulled over because I
was so engrossed in conversation with God that a cop thought I was talking on
my cellphone. The cop felt pretty silly
when he pulled me over and realized that I am just a nut who talks to God as if
he’s sitting right next to me in the passenger seat! Sometimes I cry, sometimes I laugh while I
talk to Him just like I would with a really close chum (smile).
Silence: “Be
still and know that I am God,” is one of my favorite verses, but putting it to
practice is hard! After saying a great
deal to God we need to be quiet and listen to our hearts, to God and to just
enjoy His presence. Silence is hard because
I get easily distracted, but if we make a little time for silent prayer each
day, then the Lord will help us become more sensitive to His presence and our
prayer will become deeper and more intimate.
Prayer is a
big part of a Christian it’s as important as water and air for the body- it
sustains our spiritual peace and motivates our spiritual growth. Thus, start setting aside ten minutes to be
with God and build on that. Create a small “sacred place” in your room with a crucifix, some holy
pictures, holy water, candles- you can get as creative as you want. Then close the door and pray. Maybe begin with a formal prayer (Our Father,
Hail Mary) then talk to God in your own words and end with silence. I promise, if you show up for prayer God will eventually
start leading and teaching you how to really worship Him and your life will drastically change for the better. Am praying for you corazón.
No comments:
Post a Comment