My first memories are of praying. I would sneak off to my room, hide under my bed, and talk to Jesus.
I was four years old.
I didn’t know I was praying. It would be years until I heard the term “mental prayer”; it would be longer before I fully understood the term. I had heard people speak of it and the difficulty they had doing it. It took me less than a second to decide to keep my ease with mental prayer to myself. I didn’t know why it was easy for me or hard for everyone else. I didn’t know how to explain it. I still don’t. So I hid it.
Currently, I am sitting on my roommate’s couch, my broken leg fully extended before me. My prayer life isn’t what it used to be. The physical discomfort combined with the emotional strain and complete exhaustion from lack of sleep are taking their toll on me. I’m having trouble getting my days straight; I’m not sure how many daily rosaries I have missed or when the last time I said my Christmas Novena was. I haven’t opened my Bible in days. I have the Blessed Is She advent journal. Tomorrow is the Third Sunday of Advent and I am on day four of the first week in my journal. Tomorrow also marks my third Sunday in a row of missing Mass. It’s frustrating and infuriating at the same time.
I know the best way to improve my prayer life is to pray more. I also know I am unable to pray by any of my usual methods. I am not up to speed. I have the attention span of a squirrel in a nut patch or a greedy dwarf in a gold mine. And every time I reach for prayer, spiritual sloth is there to block my path. I am going to be completely honest; I don’t even feel like praying right now. I don’t want to pray. I don’t want to pray. If you know me at all, you know how wrong it feels for me to be saying that. It freaks me out just thinking it.
My prayer life is a far cry from what it used to be. And the effort it would take to get it back feels like an insurmountable obstacle.
This is where I cheat or use crutches to help me get back to where I was. the main thing is to get back to praying. Prayer has a life of its own; once you start praying your prayer will morph and grow and change and change you and then change other things and there really isn't anything you can to to stop it. All you have to do is start. And for when starting seems impossible, there are tools you can use to help.
My main cheat/tool/crutch (whatever you want to call it) is Spotify. That’s right. But instead of music, I turn on the Rosary. I pull my rosary off my wrist and go through the motions until my actions become a prayer. Sometimes it happens instantly. Sometimes it never happens. The point is to keep trying anyway. I have a Rosary and a Divine Mercy Chaplet saved on my Spotify account; all it takes is the push of a button and that is far easier than attempting a rosary on my own. (I also sometime use EWTN streaming for rosaries or litanies.)
My second one has a bit more background to it. I have certain actions/locations I have trained myself to associate with prayer; I mindfully built a habit and it stands me in good stead in times like these. I have a plethora of hand me downs. I say a short prayer for the person I received an article of clothing from every time I wear it. I do the same when using/seeing a gift from someone, I pray for the gift giver. I pray before meals. If a book or a song or a movie brings a certain person to mind I try to pray for them right then and there. I cross myself every time I pass a church where Jesus is present in the Blessed Sacrament. I make the sign of the cross over graveyards and try to drive through them if possible, praying as I go. I pray for people who are dangerous on the road or whose bumper stickers seem like a cry for help. I say a prayer when emergency vehicles pass me on the road.
There are a thousand and one little ways to incorporate Jesus into your life if you truly desire to do so. Keep in mind that these can be tiny prayers: a Hail Mary or a simple ejaculation like Jesus have mercy or Come Holy Spirit. Remember the Sign of the Cross is a prayer.
The third one is my favorite but isn’t available to me right now. It is the practice of putting yourself physically in the presence of God when you would rather be anywhere else. Just to simply be in His presence, to make the effort of seeking Him out, to tell Him through your actions that even if you can’t pray right now, you are showing you still care the best way you know how. Go where you find God. My top places are adoration, graveyards and the beach. Go somewhere you feel physically present to God. You don’t have to pray the entire time you are there. You can say hi to God and then sketch or write or read or cry or type that email you have been dreading sending; the point is that you are doing it with Him and you chose to seek Him out to accomplish it.
The fourth way is the simplest. It is keeping things that remind me of God everywhere: on my person, in my house, in my car. For my readers who aren’t Catholic, we call these Holy Reminders. The name says it all. They are objects designed to bring our minds and hearts back to Christ. Our churches are typically full of them. They can be statues, crosses, medals, paintings or icons, banners or flags, stained glass windows….the list is almost endless.
I did just finish my rosary for the first time in days. I sat myself down in front of the TV, turned on the rosary with Mother Angelica and followed along with it word for word. By the fifth mystery I was finally “feeling it”. - for a split second before my attention slipped and I was back to square one. Tomorrow I will try again. And I will keep trying even though it seems like I am getting nowhere.
Life is hard. Praying can be hard. No one starts off being good at prayer. No one is good at prayer all the time. Our God is there to listen when we speak, heal when we are hurt and hold us when we cry. After the crazy of yesterday, let’s bring the focus back to Him.
R. Adjutórium nostrum in nómine Dómini
V. Qui fecit cælum et terram.
No comments:
Post a Comment