Developing a Prayer Life
DEVELOPING A PRAYER LIFE (taken from aggiecatholicblog.org)
“With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit.” – Ephesians 6:18
- Frequent the Sacraments – If you can make daily Mass even once a week, you have doubled your access to the greatest gift ever given humanity. Now, go to Confession at least monthly and you are surely going to get a multitude of graces. Put these on a calendar so you don’t skip them.
- Establish Good Habits – You should be able to rely on your habits to help you, and not hurt you, in your prayer. A good habit takes 66 days (at least) to establish. So, if you can commit to a routine of prayer for 2 months, you should start to lay the groundwork for healthy prayer habits.
- Accountability Counts – You need someone who is more objective than you are to look at your prayer life and see how you are doing and how the Holy Spirit is working. A spiritual director is invaluable in helping. But, if you don’t think you are ready, even have a holy friend to talk to can be good.
- Try Different Types of Prayer – We all have different tastes in prayer, just like most other things in life. So, try out different types of prayer and see which ones work for you. One caveat – don’t give up too soon on a type of prayer. It might take a good long time to discover whether it is good for you or not.
- Fast Regularly – There is great power in fasting. We see it in Scripture when Jesus fasts and calls His disciples to do the same. When we have better control over the desires of our bodies, we can pray better.
- Overcome Distractions – The simple way to overcome a distraction is to not give into it. Once you realize you are distracted turn your heart and mind back to your prayer, not to examining the distraction. This simple act is the easiest way to defeat distractions.
- Don’t Over-think Prayer – Too often we tend to complicate something that should come naturally to us. We are made for communion with God. Prayer is merely directing your mind and heart in the direction of God. If we over-complicate it, we get caught up in the externals.
- Dryness is Good For Us – Dry prayers are a gift from God. Yes, we all long to have consolations in our prayer, just as a child longs for candy and having those denied is difficult, but healthy for us. It is in dryness that our faith is tested and strengthened
- Pray for Humility – To the extent we are humble is the extent of the power of God’s grace changing our lives. Without humble prayer, God is unable to reach us, because we have no interior need for Him.
- Work on a Proper Understanding of God and Self – I can not emphasize this one enough. Many of us struggle to understand how a perfect God could love us and want a relationship with us. But, this is due, mainly, to our bad perceptions of our own dignity and the way God loves us unconditionally.
- Quiet – Our modern lives are filled with noise. We need to quiet ourselves to hear God – both internally and externally. Find a peaceful and quiet place to pray. The Church is helpful in this respect – so if you can stop at a Church, even for a short time, that would be a great idea.
- Prioritize Prayer. Schedule it. Bump something else. Get up early. Do whatever you have to do, but don’t let a day go by without spending time with the most important person in your life.
- Don’t Be Too Hard On Yourself – Struggles in your prayer life do not make you a terrible Christian. They are a universal experience of everyone who prays. So, don’t get down on yourself for struggles.
- Don’t Wait To Start – procrastination is the enemy of prayer. If you feel called to pray, don’t ever put it off.
- Find and Use Good Resources – When you don’t know what to do or how to do it, the resources can help. Resources include people, friends, books, websites, sacramentals (e.g. rosaries), Sacred Scripture, etc.
