The duties of motherhood are what will sanctify us if we cooperate with God's grace; our duties are meant to lead us to a deeper union with God and they point us to Him. Prayer is absolutely necessary for our sanctification and perfection in God's love as well. Yet it can become a temptation to let the demands of motherhood excuse us from a consistent, daily prayer life.
We may realize that we are not disciplined as we'd like to be with our spiritual life. We miss our times at prayer. We fail to rise early. Our minds dart about, wandering and distracted. When we do actually get to pray, we are interrupted by babies crying and the endless needs of our children. Or....we fall asleep.
Perhaps we can't find any time to pray ourselves but the one thing we can count on is praying with our children throughout the day. Yet, maybe the Rosary with them it looks something like this...
"Hail Mary....John-Paul stop making faces at your sister!...Full of grace...No, Ronan, stay in the room...The Lord is with thee...Teresa stop using that Rosary to play with the cat!...."
It isn't pretty. Hardly ever. But it is full of grace.
Motherhood is demanding. It is perfectly understandable why we may not be able to pray as we wish we could at times.
In the same breath, our "busy-ness" can also be a mask for the vice of acedia or a type of spiritual sloth in which the demands of motherhood become the excuse of why we can "hardly ever" pray. There is a difference. And in the face of a nagging exhaustion, it's easier, well, to just not pray.
Prayer is part discipline, and discipline is painful at first until one's faculties and habit begin to fall in line. We must be careful to not use exterior activities as a reason for not having a daily habit of prayer:
Any pretext will serve, if we can only escape this discipline of our faculties [prayer]: business, family problems, health, good reputation, patriotism, the honor of one's congregation, and the pretended glory of God, all vie with one another in preventing us from living within ourselves. This sort of frenzy for exterior life finally succeeds in gaining over us an attraction which we can no longer resist. [The Soul of the Apostolate, Jean-Baptiste Chautard, O.C.S.O.]
Even good reasons can keep us from forming the habit of a deeper prayer life.
The spiritual writers do give us counsel:
Grace is palpably felt and touched in prayer; hence it strengthens our faith and inflames our love. The peculiar trial of hard work is that it keeps us so much from prayer, and takes away the flower of our strength before we have time for prayer, and physical strength is very needful for praying. In consequence of this attraction we acquire habits of prayer by having set times for it, whether mental or vocal. Not that a mere habit of praying will make anyone a man of prayer. But God will not send His fire, if we do not first lay the sacrifice in order. [Growth in Holiness, Father Faber] my emphasis added.
For the morning time is the best time for all spiritual exercises. [Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales]
So as moms, there's days here and there we may miss our time of solitude and quiet with the Lord. We might sleep in by accident or by need. Emergencies and interruptions happen that tend to be the duties of the moment. These things can sometimes lead our prayer life to become inconsistent. It happens. That's OK!
But then there's the inconstancy of an underlying spiritual sloth that masks itself as constant activity done for the good and noble reasons of our vocations. We ought to be convinced that even though we may do much by exterior activity, it will bear very little fruit apart from an interior life. Our good works within our vocation should actually flow out from our interior life and be an overflow of it; if we try to do it the other way around, we will just drain ourselves and be lacking in that joy and life which our Lord promises us in the midst of it:
I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly.
[John 10:10]
Questions to consider in dealing with inconstancy in prayer
*First, to be clear, when I speak of the time for prayer, I am referring to that intimate time of solitude and quiet that we ought to carve out for God, daily - the time of meditation or, as it's also called, mental prayer - that Father Faber had above-mentioned we must first earnestly sacrifice for. For "For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us," says St. Teresa of Avila.*
So how can we deal with the inconstancy of our prayer at times? First we may ask ourselves these questions...
1. Take note of the pattern of your inconstancy.
Am I sleeping in past my time of prayer? Perhaps I need to go to bed earlier. Perhaps I need to be more disciplined in waking at my alarm.
Am I frequently falling asleep during prayer? Perhaps I need to move my prayer to another time of day or just get more sleep.
Is this simply due to a "season of life" I am in? (For example, a child wakes up crying because he is going through a phase or you have an infant to tend to). If so, it will pass. Keep steady to your prayer commitments the best you can and don't give them up; just adjust and be flexible as to when and where. If you can't one day, just let it go and try again the next day, discerning how and where the adjustments need to be made. But most importantly, don't stop praying! St. Teresa of Avila reminds us this during our times of sickness: "Prayer is an act of love, words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts from thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love."
Is there an activity that is encroaching upon my time of prayer? How can I change things so that my time of prayer does not take second place in my day?
Did something throw me "off-track" with my daily prayer and I just haven't taken the initiative to seriously get back on track? Then get back on track.
Do I miss prayer because I have not properly prioritized the use of my time and end up doing other non-urgent things instead? The underlying cause of this may be spiritual sloth and a dissipation of spirit will happen by being so caught up in worldly matters and not allowing the soul to breathe.
On an aside but related to these former questions, this next comment may be debatable, but it's worth considering since it's repeated so often by the saints: Morning is the best time for mental prayer.
As a busy parent of young children, you have two options: To pray before the kids wake up or after the kids fall asleep. (That is, unless your kids have a consistent, every-day nap time OR your spouse tag-teams a daily prayer time with you at some point during the day, i.e. they watch the kids while you go in another room to pray for a time and vice versa). Until quite recently, I used to sympathize with the "night person" versus "morning person" consideration. I understand that. But then it lead me to think: We are not a "morning person" or "night person" by nature. There is no DNA for being a "night owl" or an "early bird." I have to conclude that it's just a long and deeply-ingrained habit that our bodies and minds have likely acquired over a long period of time, some time ago, perhaps even from our childhood school days. We got used to waking or falling asleep at a certain time consistently; it fit our daily routine and we just typically stuck with it overall.
[EDIT: I share this because as you might know, I am no physiologist! A friend of mine had shared with me an interesting article about the physiological aspect of our "internal clock" and our tendency to be either a morning or night person.]
However, I am deeply convinced that whatever time we choose for our daily time with the Lord, that our minds and bodies fall in line with the discipline. One older, more-experienced mother shared with me that forming this habit was "the hardest lesson she had to teach herself," but now, for her, it is very easy to rise early and pray. Like her, it might be the hardest yet most necessary habit to acquire. It should be emphasized, however, that whatever time we choose, being consistent with it and developing that intimate relationship with the Lord are what matters most. St. Teresa of Avila advises us with regards to prayer:
"The important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love." [St. Teresa of Avila]
Aiming for the morning is something worth seriously considering and striving for anyway. Again, if you are a parent of young children, we really only have two options: Before the kids wake or after they go to bed (Again, unless you have some kind of routine as noted above). So, what time do your children typically wake up? If you wake up with them, why not try to wake up 15 minutes earlier and then increase that time by 5 or ten minutes every couple of weeks until you feel you've allotted ample time for your daily time of mental prayer? It's doable! :)
If you'd rather pray at night, make a resolution to do it first thing after your child or children fall asleep. Chances are that if you don't, you won't, or you will be too tired.
An important thing to remember is that we ought to fit our day around prayer, not prayer into our day. Do you see the difference?
2. Do I thirst and pine to grow in daily intimacy with the Lord through prayer?
Each moment that our minds are not occupied by the duties of our state in life which need that type of mental attention, we ought to lift our hearts and minds to God. Even in the midst of our doing, we can still be loving God.
In regards to daily time of prayer and those days we perhaps either miss it or have to cut it short, does that desire to pray still remain in us? Are we still "searching for God" throughout our day for "little pockets of prayer" to stow away with God in our hearts or during an unexpected pause in our day? If that desire to be with God in prayer remains, it is a good sign that one is not missing prayer due to the vice of spiritual tepidity or spiritual sloth.
3. Am I taking concrete steps to establish prayer as a daily part of my life?
Concrete steps are important because it is very easy for one to merely say, "Ugh, I need to get back to praying every day" and then never follow through. Desires need to be backed by resolutions.
If a season in life, perhaps a sickness, threw you off track with your daily prayer, what are you doing to establish it as part of your daily life again?
Establish concrete steps and write it down if you have to. At the end of the day, ask yourself if you did them. If you didn't, simply try again the next day.
Remember, daily prayer is the most important thing you can do in your day. Do not take this commitment lightly. Again, "God will not send His fire if we do not first lay the sacrifice in order."
4. Skipping or missing prayer should be the exception rather than the rule.
So, is your time of daily prayer the exception or the rule? The goal is every day. Yet the days don't always go as we had hoped. Unexpected interruptions happen from time to time. Breathe. Let it go. Occasionally, you just need to sleep in. You're sick? Get better! You have an infant? Take it easy on yourself!
But if you notice that missing prayer is becoming more of your rule of life and a habit, it's time to begin asking yourself the first three questions again. What's underlying it?
So mothers, you're doing great. Even if you miss prayer at times or struggle with making that time some days, it is a good sign if:
1. Your desire to abide with the Lord in prayer remains
2. You are taking concrete steps to establish prayer as part of your daily life
3. You simply try again the next day if you miss the time for daily prayer
4. You persevere and never give up! :)
Remember, to grow in a relationship with someone you need to spend time with them, and so it is with prayer. Consider the questions above when you realize you are lacking consistency or get thrown off-track. Prayer is our time with God; it is our "intimate sharing" as St. Teresa of Avila says.
[NOTE: ***While prayer is vital for growth, it may look differently for each person depending on their circumstances. The overall goal is love and consistency! Sometimes exceptional cases happen where we are dealing with a chronic illness and try to pray as we are used to but can't; or perhaps one is advancing in prayer and the experience of prayer changes. But this is where those who are serious about the spiritual life should pray and seek out a spiritual director & be patient with themselves. These are general thoughts to consider but cannot tend it to unique or individual circumstances.***]
Let us end here with the words from an oft-cited spiritual writer, Father Faber, in his book Growth in Holiness:
"The most serious business of the interior life is mental prayer...spiritual writers, and even saints (St. Alphonsus Liguori for example), have sometimes spoken as if meditation were almost necessary to salvation; and there are senses and cases in which this may be true. It is, however, quite certain that mental prayer is necessary to perfection, and that there can be nothing like a spiritual life without it. For mental prayer means the occupation of our faculties upon God, not in the way of thinking or speculating about Him, but stirring up the will to conform itself to Him and the affections to love Him."