I have come to fall in love with teaching in Catholic schools. What are YOU in love with?...

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything." - Pedro Arrupe

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Pray Constantly

We've been studying the Lord's Prayer in religion class recently, and today's lesson focused on how we are called to pray constantly.

How is that possible? Man, were the students' heads spinning on that one!

And we had a pretty solid discussion  on the topic with suggestions such as setting aside times to pray in the morning and evening, treating everyone like we would treat Jesus, doing things to honor and thank God, etc. One student even said that our whole lives are a prayer because God watches everything we do. (Wow)

For me, I know it's impossible to go from praying intermittently throughout the day to "praying constantly," but I've decided to try by doing a few steps at a time:

1 - When I first wake up in the morning, I recently set my cell phone alarm to ring with the phrase "Thank God today" printed across the screen - Just a quick reminder for starting the day off right.
2 - During breakfast, I try to meditate on the daily Gospel and reflection sent via Pray.ND.edu. (I get it delivered straight to my inbox - what a wonderful thing!)
3 - When I drive to school, I like to pray the Rosary or be in silence. Sometimes, though, this isn't possible, depending on if I am giving my roommate a ride or not. But if I can do it a few days a week, that's improvement.
4 - At the transition of each class, I want to remember to send up a little prayer to God to ask for patience, help, or even thank Him for how the last class period went. (And we also pray as a school at the beginning of the day, and we pray as a class before lunch and dismissal.)
5 - Evening prayer needs to become a more consistent part of each day. (I have to admit I sometimes become lazy with that.)

And the list needs to go on...but I find that trying to change/add/modify too much at once isn't feasible. I'd rather start small and do well with those and then build from there.

Are you ready to make prayer more constant in your life?

2 comments:

  1. how did you make that message on your phone? mine says "god loves you" when i turn it on... but that's not very often because i usually keep it on...

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  2. You wrote this like a year ago in blog time, but I wanted to say that I have been trying to do Morning or Evening Prayer (from the Liturgy of the Hours) lately, and it is doing wonders! I feel so much more at peace, especially since I've kept up with Night Prayer as well.

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