Tag: Difficulty in PrayerWhat if I just don’t like to pray at all?
I’m intrigued (and admittedly pleasantly surprised) at your #2 suggestion … in that I would have thought that anyone reading this blog would already be praying daily, and probably for way more than five minutes. I guess I overassumed..? Anyway, I enjoy the interesting posts on this blog. I’m sorry if my question(s) were at all offensive … I’m not Catholic. I’m just a heathen who’s sort of entertaining the idea of converting… thus reading Catholic blogs like this one. A: When I first read your question, I think of many people I know who don’t particularly “like” praying at different moments of the day or during different periods of their life; they are busy and their minds are somewhere else, or they have practical worries, or they are just tired and don’t feel like it. Your question goes a bit deeper, however, because it speaks about not liking to pray “at all.” Within the limits of email correspondence and not having the possibility of a face-to-face meeting with ulterior questions, my best attempt at an answer for your quandary (which, by the way, is not uncommon) would be the need to delve into a deeper knowledge of God. The age-old adage, “You can’t love what you don’t know,” is at the heart of the problem. If God is very foreign to me, or if I know very little about him, or if – practically speaking – he just has no influence in my life, then prayer is going to be difficult and it is going to seem like “talking to myself.” I recommend getting to know God more, and especially the person of Jesus Christ. Just getting to know him – the revelation of the Father – will most certainly turn your heart towards loving him… and then I believe prayer should start to become a sharing and not a monologue. I don’t think it is necessary to start with deep theology – just grab a book on the life of Christ and see who he is, how he dealt with others, the love he had for all men and women. The Gospel is awesome. It is THE book with which to start. But there are also others that narrate the life of Christ in a simple yet comprehensive way and serve to enrich our understanding. I recommend To Know Christ Jesus by Frank Sheed, but there are many, many others. The way your question is written, it seems to me that Our Lord is actually reaching out to you. You are not Catholic. You are thinking about spiritual things. You are desiring to learn more about prayer. These things don’t happen in a vacuum. So I think you are in a very favorable situation and that God will definitely bless all of your good desires. One word about the prayer of petition. Not only is it a valid form of prayer, but the Lord himself exhorts us in many places of the Gospel to ask… and to ask many times without giving up. “Ask and you shall receive” is just an example. My favorite, though, is the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father. It is full of petitions – some for God himself (may his name be hallowed, may his kingdom come, may his will be done), some for us (give us our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil). God is the good Father par excellence, and he likes to hear his children ask. You will only experience his joy if you ask him for your needs. In Christ, Father Joseph Burtka, LC The Better Part – A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer
No one who is learning or desires to learn to pray more deeply and meditate more effectively on the person and work of Christ should go without this book. It offers a basic but at the same time sufficiently comprehensive overview of how to meditate in the Christian tradition (no New Age or Hindu/Buddhist influences here.) Beyond the solid instruction on meditation method, Father John provides us with meditations through the four Gospels and group study questions at the end of each of the 303 meditation units. Table of Contents (Partial): Gods Idea of Prayer
Types of Prayer
Four Step Structure of Meditation
Difficulties in Prayer
If you want to deepen your relationship with Christ by learning to meditate on Christ and his teaching through timeless and authentic Catholicism, this is the best way I know to start. Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him Dan Problems with my mind… any ideas?
So, who cares? Well, I thought it may be of interest to those who, like me, have a similar struggle and are looking for answers. We desire to reserve some capacity every moment of every waking hour for Christ. We want him present with us. We want to be present with him. We rise with that desire, we pray, we meditate, we discipline ourselves to hours of prayer. However, in the mean times – when we are not on our knees dedicated to the specific task of prayer (and unfortunately sometimes when we are), our minds are racing. Then, the day suddenly comes to a close. Yes, we have given a good deal of time to prayer. However, as we close the day we realize that the majority of the time passed without even a hint of prayer. We created our tasks lists, even with our sacred callings in mind. However, once off of our knees, he really was nowhere to be found (in our hearts and minds). Not that he was not with us, but we were not with him. We are constantly in a flurry of self-sufficiency. Such that it even threatens and encroaches on our other spiritual commitments. Tasks and thoughts about tasks constantly push in to crowd him out as if they desire that he not be present – as if they, though good tasks, were presented by the devil himself – anything to keep us from him – even that which is “good.” So, what is the answer? Really, I don’t know for sure. Thus far my attempts have been focused on nurturing my prayer life (morning and evening prayer etc.). By God’s mercy this effort has yielded great fruit. However, I don’t seem to be making much progress with the idea of staying present with Christ in between specific times of prayer. This morning I read something helpful by Brother Lawrence. He said that evil begins in our thoughts. That we must be careful to reject each of these thoughts “as soon as we become aware that they are not essential to our present duties, or our salvation.” This idea struck me as very wise. I realized that I constantly entertain thoughts that though not evil or sinful in and of themselves, they fail to rise to the standard of helping with present duties and my salvation. Is this the next great battle ground of my growth in faith? I think so. So why bring this to your attention? My hope is that if there is anyone out there that has overcome this challenge, that you might offer up suggestions to aid me and others in the fight. With such an active mind and naturally aggressive work ethic, how can I reserve a portion of myself as always attentive to Christ – every waking moment of my life? Anonymous How can I better prepare for prayer and meditation?
A: It seems to me that your question is being asked in direct response to the nudging of the Holy Spirit. You have noticed references to the “preparation of points” (as spiritual writers often refer to it) in two different contexts, and it has made you curious. That’s usually how the Holy Spirit tries to get our attention. I will do my best to give you some clarity. Reasons for Getting Ready Let’s start with an analogy. If you are going on a car trip to a place you have never been before, what’s the first thing you do? You look up the directions (unless you have a GPS, that is, but for the sake of argument, let’s say you don’t). And as you look them up, you jot down the key landmarks: get onto I-95 going north, take exit 78 towards Clintonville, turn right at the Gulf station… Once you start your trip, you keep the direction handy, referring to them now and again as you head towards your destination. They do not take the place of your journey; they are an aid to a smooth journey, one in which you don’t get lost. The “preparation of points” for our meditation is like jotting down the directions for your meditation. It’s a longstanding practice used not only by priests and religious, but also by lay people – by anyone who is striving for greater depth and consistency in their life of mental prayer. It’s based on an extremely realistic principle, namely, that we rarely (if ever) find ourselves in the perfect circumstances for prayer. Usually, in fact, mental prayer is quite demanding. Not only do we have to keep our worries, agendas, and to-do lists on the back burner during the meditation (and they tend to throw tantrums when we don’t pay attention to them), but often we also have to battle against physical tiredness or discomfort, external noise, and even the wily distractions of the devil. This helps explains why persevering in prayer is challenging. It also helps explain why so many well-intentioned Christians never advance beyond the most elementary level of mental prayer – the onslaught of obstacles impedes their forward progress. The preparation of points is one proven tactic to help us deal more effectively with all these obstacles. Brass Tacks Here’s how it works. In the evening, or at night before you go to sleep, take five minutes to prepare for your next day’s meditation. Do it the night before, even if you won’t be doing your meditation until midday or tomorrow evening (though it is highly recommended to try and get our meditation in before we launch into the day’s busy-ness). During those five minutes do the following:
That’s it; it’s that simple. I could try to describe in greater detail the many benefits that accrue to those who make an effort, even a small one, to prepare their meditation points. But the simple fact that this practice has been common and recommended by the Church for at least the last five hundred years should be convincing enough. And besides, it’s more interesting to try it and see what the Holy Spirit does for you personally, rather than slogging through the description of someone else’s experience and then, perhaps mistakenly, trying to reproduce it detail by detail for oneself. But even so, I am sure we will all be interested to hear how it goes, if you decide to give it a shot. God bless you! Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC I want to pray but struggle with my schedule – what do I do?
A: The desire to improve your prayer life is a sign of God’s presence and action in your soul. Be grateful for it and rest assured that God, “who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion…” (Phil 1:6). In other words, as you make the effort, God will guide you (he already is). Trust in that. Then consider four other points: 1. Beware of Perfectionism: Sometimes our desire for perfection is the enemy of progress. For instance, in the spiritual enthusiasm following a good retreat, we can often make unrealistic resolutions, e.g. “I am going to spend a full hour every day in meditative prayer,” or “I am going to pray the entire Liturgy of the Hours before I go to work.” Over-achievers especially struggle with this tendency. Instead of being satisfied with a moderate work out three times a week they feel they are not living up to their potential unless they cram in six hour-long workouts every week – as if they were still training for elite track meets instead of raising a family and running a business. With that attitude, they never get regular exercise at all; their unrealistic ideal of perfection keeps them from the basic maintenance work out that they really need. So, ask yourself: am I being unrealistic in my expectations for what constitutes a healthy amount of time for prayer, considering my life-situation? 2. Consistency, Consistency, Consistency: Work on quality and regularity rather than quantity. It is probably realistic to take ten minutes a day to speak heart-to-heart with Christ. Choose the same ten-minute slot each day, as best you can. Then add in another daily prayer commitment – maybe a decade of the Rosary on the drive home, or a 2-minute stop at the statue of Mary in the Parish parking lot before you pull into your driveway, or five minutes thanking God for the blessings of the day before you go to sleep (this is a beautiful prayer to pray together with your spouse). Along with your daily prayer commitment, have another one each week – a holy hour (or a holy half-hour), a family Rosary on Saturday evening, arriving 15 minutes early for Sunday Mass, one extra Mass each week (maybe during your lunch hour on Thursday)… Then add something extra for each liturgical season: a family visit to a nearby Marian shrine in the Easter Season, a morning of reflection during Advent, a retreat during Lent… Once you have identified reasonable commitments, do your best to stick to them. Keep track of you how do, and at the end of each month, adjust them – adding or subtracting commitments, increasing or decreasing time, as necessary. Remember, these are commitments you are making to Christ, and he knows your schedule, so if you’re simply making a decent effort to stay united to him, you will be growing and he will be pleased. It’s an ongoing thing. 3. Find Good Resources: One of the biggest obstacles to growth in prayer is not knowing what to do once we actually get to our prayer time. Busy people need a good resource to help focus their attention on Christ. The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer was designed to be exactly that, a resource to help busy, active people go deeper in their prayer life. The Magnificat booklet also has material that can be very helpful. My own Order produces daily meditation guides distributed by email. Keep looking for material that helps you connect quickly and deeply with Christ, and that fits into your scheduled prayer commitments. Ask around, try different things… Prayer is like walking: we all follow the same basic principles when we do it, but we each do so in a very personalized way. 4. Work as Worship: Turn your work into prayer. Remember that the goal of our prayer is to know, love, and follow Christ better and better. There is not meant to be a Maginot Line separating our prayer and our life activities. As the Catechism says, “we pray as we live, because we live as we pray” (#2752). Pursue excellence at work as a way of glorifying God and helping your neighbors; treat your peers and employees as Christ would treat them; make all that you do an offering to God; live virtue in the midst of temptations as a way of “glorifying God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20)… Striving to make all your work, hobbies, family responsibilities, and relationships into the “aroma of Christ for God” (2 Corinthians 2:15) is in itself a prayer pleasing to God. It helps live more and more in Christ’s presence, bringing prayer and life closer together (though it never eliminates the need to dedicate time exclusively to God in prayer). Much more could be said, but the key thing is just to keep trying to improve. Don’t think you’ll find the perfect formula – there is no such thing. It’s a question of constancy and perseverance in our efforts, all the while trusting that God is always guiding us. Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC |
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