I think we've all thought these before:
"I just don't have time to pray right now in this season of life...maybe I will later when the kids get older."
or
"My work is my prayer."
or
"A deep contemplative prayer life is not for me."
or
"There's no way I'd ever be a saint."
These statements are false. If you think any of these, realize that you are believing a lie and poof! Be gone with it. I will go a little more into detail in a bit with these lies from the father of lies who desires us to never establish a consistent and meditative prayer life.
Ladies, guess what? You are most certainly called to sainthood! And yes, you too are called
to have a deep contemplative prayer life, a life of Divine union with our Lord here on earth...even amidst the gaggle of noisy, crying, laughing, rampaging little ones!
This is the will of God, your sanctification. [1 Thessalonians 4:3]
That's it. God's will is that you become holy.
Saint John Paul II spoke in his Apostolic letter at the close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000...
This ideal of perfection must not be misunderstood as if it involved some kind of extraordinary existence, possible only for a few "uncommon heroes" of holiness. The ways of holiness are many, according to the vocation of each individual. I thank the Lord that in these years he has enabled me to beatify and canonize a large number of Christians, and among them many lay people who attained holiness in the most ordinary circumstances of life. [My emphasis added] The time has come to re-propose wholeheartedly to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living: the whole life of the Christian community and of Christian families must lead in this direction.
Holiness is for everyone. We don't need amazing miracles, visions, levitation, bilocation, or extreme penances. We don't need extraordinary spiritual gifts because that's exactly what they are - extraordinary. (Although there are the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit that St. Paul said we should desire, with a pure intention). But this holiness can be achieved only by God's grace, as you open the doors to that grace through an ever-deepening prayer life.
Prayer is so essential - not only for your sanctification and salvation, but also necessary to live each day with joy, hope, patience (oh yes, patience), and love. Do not think otherwise!
On Prayer
First, I wish to define a term and that is the kind of prayer I am referring to.
Work most certainly can be a form of prayer and praise to God. There are also others ways of praying: Practicing the Presence of God throughout the day, there's ejaculatory prayers we may spontaneously utter during the course of our day; there's community and liturgical prayer like attending a prayer group or going to Mass. But these shouldn't be our only forms. Actually, the spiritual wisdom of the saints tells us that in order to grow in holiness, mental prayer spent in silence must be a part of our daily rhythm. Mental prayer is the type of prayer I am speaking of here in this post.
Vocal prayer is good; these are prayers we pray that are "pre-written" for us. But without mental prayer and a space for meditation which accompanies it, we cannot grow in holiness. Mental prayer typically begins as discursive meditation where you...
...read until you find some thought that impresses you. Then you pause either to soak it in, as it were, or to develop it, almost as if you are reasoning with yourself, somewhat as one might do in giving a sermon to another. [Mental Prayer, Fr. William Most from EWTN website]
After discursive meditation comes affective prayer:
Affective prayer is a simpler meditation. Instead of taking ten minutes to read and ponder a Scripture passage, we might spend a minute or two picturing Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (a favorite subject of St. Teresa’s). Our will is moved to express its love for God almost at once. In affective prayer, we are sometimes moved to sit silently for a moment (or longer) to hear what the Holy Spirit would say to us. When our mind begins to wander, we return to our image or take up another and repeat the process. [St. Teresa of Avila on silence in prayer, spiritualdirection.com]
From there, we can move to the prayer of simplicity or acquired recollection which will eventually lead to infused contemplation and higher forms of prayer. But so important is this beginning stage of Christian meditation that St. Teresa of Avila said that mental prayer is the gateway to all higher forms of prayer. And remember, we are called to live a deep, contemplative life (active contemplative life since we're moms! It's not like I can shut myself in a room all day and pray, although I'd honestly love to do that!).
St. Teresa also used to say that...
he who neglects mental prayer, needs not a devil to carry him to Hell, but he brings himself there with his own hands.
Powerful and convicting words! So are you praying? Not just vocal prayer, but engaging prayer with your heart every day in a consistent and regular prayer time?
8 tips to help you pray
Here's 8 tips to help you with your busy, active life as mom - especially of multiple littles!
1. Find time.
Either prayer is THE priority of our day, or it's not. If we could understand that mental prayer is the most important part of our daily routine, there'd be no question in the amount of creativity or "crucifying" we'd put into making time. (More on "crucifying" in a bit!)
Here are 7 ways to make time for prayer, from Connie Rossini at Contemplative Homeschool. This will certainly help you find time.
As a mother of little children who are constantly in need of you, there is absolutely no way I could even enter into mental prayer during the day while they're awake. I'd either be interrupted, distracted, or wondering what the kids are up to when everything is suddenly silent. My point is there are two options left in the course of our daily routine as busy moms of multiple little children: Before the kids wake up or after they go to sleep. Take your pick! But honestly, if those don't work, pray about it and be willing to make sacrifices for it.
2. Be disciplined.
Linked in with #1, we need to remember that prayer is a discipline. It will take effort and struggle to develop a habit of getting up, say, 15 minutes earlier. It will take self-discipline to not default to Facebook immediately after the kids go down for bed. Prayer first. Be disciplined and strive for that daily discipline.
3. Reduce and eliminate idle activity.
"Crucify" a bit of your down time and resurrect it into a time of prayer. Work on time management too.
I bet we have more time for prayer than we think.
St. Alphonsus Liguori, great Doctor of the Church, warns us in his treatise on prayer...
He who neglects meditation, and is distracted with worldly affairs, will not know his spiritual wants, the dangers to which his salvation is exposed, the means which he must adopt in order to conquer temptations, or ever the necessity of the prayer of petition for all men; thus, he will give up the practice of prayer, and by neglecting to ask God's graces he will certainly be lost.
Idle time is tied in with this. This is time spent frivolously, be it watching television, scrolling through social media endlessly, and so on. There's nothing wrong with recreating and having leisure time - we need that to refresh us. But our culture places way too much emphasis upon these things. This time is even more dangerous when we watch things that contain sinful content. Our Lord tells us through Scripture that
Idleness hath brought much evil. [Sirach 33:29]
We need to be wise about our use of time...
But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment. [Matthew 12:36]
All of our actions, all of our words, the use of our time - everything done idly - will be taken into account at our judgement when we die.
4. Find a method of Christian meditation.
This great half-hour podcast from Divine Intimacy radio starts with what prayer is and introduces various methods. I highly recommend listening to it while you do laundry or wash dishes - any time you can!
Here are a couple other articles you may check out that explain a simple method of prayer:
As you delve more into prayer and growing in your faith, you'll discovering more "ways of meditation" from the saints that will direct you toward this one end: Union with God.
Remember, as the Catechism says,
[A] method is only a guide; the important thing is to advance with the Holy Spirit, along the way of prayer: Jesus Christ. (#2707)
5. Be a lover of silence.
Mother Teresa put it very succinctly and beautifully...
The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.
The fruit of silence is prayer.
We live in a super-stimulated culture. Think of how often songs get stuck in your head, or commercial and movie lines repeat themselves in your mind. Think of how many images cross your eyes and sounds cross your ears a day. Think of how many times you glance at a screen from your computer, ipad or smartphone. It's overwhelming to our senses. (For more about this "noise," read Teresa Tomeo's book Noise: How our media-saturated culture dominates lives and dismantles families). It's already hard enough to pray considering all we have on our mind as parents, or with our jobs, our children, our spouses, our church and so on...then throw in the constant bombardment of media stimulation. Wow, it's no wonder our society has lost its sense of God. It's no wonder that many Christians find it so difficult to have a faithful prayer life steeped in an attentive silence to the Lord.
As Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI said:
Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God - there are too many frequencies filling our ears.
Be a lover of silence if you wish to cultivate a deeper prayer life and if you wish to receive the gift of contemplation which sets our soul aflame.
...our hearts were made to welcome this gift and when we possess it, the whole reality of heaven is brought into earthly existence. [Fire from Above, Dr. Anthony Lilles]
So stop needing to turn the radio on in the car everywhere you go. Don't leave the tv on in the background. Practice custody of the eyes in the car by not glancing at every glaring billboard you pass (hard, isn't it?). Leave your phone in another room and don't go check it. These practices will create a space for silence in our heart.
6. Start small.
There's no need to immediately jump into a half hour or hour of prayer if you're just beginning. Start small. Try just 10 minutes. Follow one of the methods of Christian meditation referenced above. As you continue to make this a daily habit, extend the time by another five minutes, and so on. The rule is, the more one prays, the more one loves to pray. While prayer is our response to God's gift of grace, on our end it really is about exercising that desire. There is more of a "human effort" on our part, especially at the beginning stages of prayer. But as one progresses in their prayer life - accompanied by mortification and humility as well as the practice of other virtues - the more the prayer becomes "infused" and a wholly divine action within us. Truly heavenly.
On a side note, it is important to mention that our growth in holiness, while dependent upon our prayer, must also be accompanied by acts of mortification (self-denial) and in a special way, the virtue of humility. I think these two things have been neglected to be taught in our modern times. Yet they are so essential for our spiritual life as well and go hand-in-hand with prayer. Fr. William Most shares in his book Our Father's Plan...
...any kind of prayer without the support of mortification and humility would be almost if not entirely devoid of value. St. Jane de Chantal points out that there is even danger of delusion: "A person to whom God gives [special or high ] graces at prayer, should give good heed to accompany them with true mortification and humility ...if they do not, the graces will not last, or are nothing but illusions.
Yes, it is truly the prayer of a humble heart which pieces the clouds, as Scripture tells us.
7. Use a timer.
This seems a little silly but I've been counselled to keep steady with the length of time I commit to prayer, no matter how dry or desolate it may be. This means not getting up and leaving when you "don't feel" anything after a few minutes, or even 30 minutes. Stay there and continue to remain with the Lord, offering that as a sacrifice as He purifies your desire to be with Him so that it stems from not from "what I can get from God" but rather "what I can give to God." This is a pure intention.
I like to set a timer on my phone (by the way, if the phone will distract you, leave it in another room! For myself, I silence it and don't struggle with the temptation to look at it, at this point). If the phone would be a temptation to distraction, leave it somewhere else and invest in a simple little kitchen timer. I like using a timer though because I know I've allotted a certain amount of time I like to give in prayer and it leaves no room for temptation to check and see how much time I have left to pray (because my kids start getting up nearing the end of my prayer time). My cue is the ding!
8. Persevere!
If there's one important thing to remember about prayer, it's PERSEVERE! Don't give up. We need faith, trust, and determination. We need discipline. We need to persevere and stay faithful to daily prayer. The enemy of our salvation will tempt us away from daily mental prayer through feelings of discouragement. He will throw obstacles and distractions in our way to deter us from our commitment. God allows this. He allows us to be tested so that we may see whether our desire to commune daily with God is true and pure.
St. Francis de Sales wrote concerning "dryness" in our meditation (an obstacle in prayer which many beginners face that leads them to give up daily mental prayer because they don't "feel" anything, unless they've been instructed in these temptations):
Should it happen sometimes, my daughter, that you have no taste for or consolation in your meditation, I entreat you not to be troubled, but seek relief in vocal prayer, bemoan yourself to our Lord, confess your unworthiness, implore His Aid, kiss His Image, if it be beside you, and say in the words of Jacob, I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me; or with the Canaanitish woman, Yes, Lord, I am as a dog before Thee, but the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.
Or you can take a book, and read attentively till such time as your mind is calmed and quickened; or sometimes you may find help from external actions, such as prostrating yourself folding your hands upon your breast, kissing your Crucifix, that is, supposing you are alone. But if, after all this, you are still unrelieved, do not be disturbed at your dryness, however great it be, but continue striving after a devout attitude in God's Sight. What numbers of courtiers appear a hundred times at court without any hope of a word from their king, but merely to pay their homage and be seen of him. Just so, my daughter, we ought to enter upon mental prayer purely to fulfil our duty and testify our loyalty. If it pleases God's Divine Majesty to speak to us, and discourse in our hearts by His Holy Inspirations and inward consolations, it is doubtless a great honour, and very sweet to our soul; but if He does not vouchsafe such favours, but makes as though He saw us not,as though we were not in His Presence,nevertheless we must not quit it, but on the contrary we must remain calmly and devoutly before Him, and He is certain to accept our patient waiting, and give heed to our assiduity and perseverance; so that another time He will impart to us His consolations, and let us taste all the sweetness of holy meditation. But even were it not so, let us, my child, be satisfied with the privilege of being in His Presence and seen of Him. [Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales]
To be in the presence of God - even if we don't "feel" it - is a privilege in and of itself that we should be satisfied with.
Also, a reminder that I shared in a past post Two keys to joyful mothering was that we're moms. So there's going to be mornings here and there where we sleep in, nights where we just konk out after the kids go down, and children to tend to at random hours of the night and spontaneous times of the day. The Lord understands this. But let us always strive to set a daily time for prayer. And if you notice that lately you've been missing it, see what you need to change. Is it the time? Are you just being lazy? Are you getting sucked into doing other things that are taking its place? Do you keep your phone by you, which causes distraction?
Is it because you've been sick? That's fine...let the sickness pass; your suffering becomes a prayer. Adjusting to a newborn and the schedule is just all wacky? Just keep an eye open for those "pockets of prayer" - those little short minutes you have nursing the baby, a few minutes here, a few minutes there, etc... But never, never, never, stop striving for a consistent, daily prayer life. That is the goal; if you miss it here and there, no fret. If you notice a pattern, see what needs changed. When you get off track, get back on track. Always.
Also, another little way the enemy may tempt us as we "pick up" in our prayer life is he will make us so "zealous" for prayer (a false zeal, not a true zeal from God) that we disregard the duties of our state in life. So, for example, say your child woke up earlier than usual and you hear him crying in the bedroom, but you let him continue to cry because, "Ugh! This is my prayer time!"
Those little lies...
So, to get back to those little lies I began with:
"I just don't have time to pray right now in this season of life...maybe I will later when the kids get older."
You do. Be creative and be willing to make sacrifices for it, if your desire is pure and true.
"My work is my prayer."
St. Alphonsus Liguori responded to this fallacy:
Some may imagine that the long time which devout souls give to prayer, and which they could spend in useful works, is unprofitable and lost time. But such persons know not that in mental prayer souls acquire strength to conquer enemies and to practice virtue. "From this leisure," says St. Bernard, "strength comes forth. [Prayer: The Great Means of Perfection and Salvation, St. Alphonsus Liguori]
We may be tempted to think, "But there's so much that needs to get done, how can I do it all?" You know, God has this strange and mysterious thing about His generosity, and that is that whatever we give Him (for example, in this case, our time to be used for prayer), He gives back to us a hundredfold.
Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come." [Mark 10:29-30]
It really is miraculous how the Lord does it because I've witnessed it time and time again in my own life. In the same breath though, we also need to be willing to let God show us the things we need to "cut out" of our plans that day that are maybe not in His plans. This is detachment. "Only what You Will today, Lord. I have my plans laid out for the day, but I submit them to Your Will and prefer that above my own."
Ok, next lie..
"A deep contemplative prayer life is not for me."
It is for you and you are called to it. You may find this hard to picture right now at this point in your life, but give God the desire and He will give you the grace. Be patient with yourself and just let God mold you. But you need to put in the effort too.
"There's no way I'd ever be a saint."
Yes you can because we are all called to holiness. Realize your sins and faults and confess them, but don't pound away at yourself about it. Just keep your gaze fixed on Christ. We must adopt the spiritual childhood that Christ so desires of us, this "spiritual doctrine" that St. Therese of Lisieux helped us understand more fully:
It [spiritual childhood] is to recognize our nothingness, to expect everything from God as a little child expects everything from its father; it is to be disquieted about nothing, and not to be set on gaming our living. ... To be little is not attributing to oneself the virtues that one practices. ... It is not to become discouraged over one's faults, for children fall often, but they are too little to hurt themselves very much. [St. Therese: Her Last Conversations]
So there you have it my fellow moms out there. You are called to a deep prayer life and the heights of contemplation! And you are called to be a saint!
This is the will of God, your sanctification.
~ 1 Thessalonians 4:3