You don’t have to feel guilty if you get distracted during prayer. A couple of years ago, I started praying the Rosary every day. I suffered from a crazy amount of distractions, which led met into a crazy amount of guilt. I used to get angry at myself for not focusing better during prayer. When…
How to Pray
The Ignatian Examen
There is an incredibly powerful prayer practice in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola called the Prayer of Examen. While the Ignatian examen has been interpreted and applied in various ways, I have found that looking closely at the origin of the practice and developing my own variation of the examen has had a tremendous effect…
6 Tips for Starting a Daily Prayer Routine
So you’re committed to adding prayer into your daily routines. Now how do you make sure you won’t forget to pray? How do you truly set aside time to pray and make it a habit? I found that when I tried to insert prayer into my blogging routine, it took me a few times to…
Shorten Your Prayers
One obstacle I have found to focusing during prayer has been an attempt to race through prayers. If I’m praying the entire Liturgy of the Hours or praying with the daily readings, I usually get the feeling that I need to say and read quickly so that I can finish quickly. I get easily distracted…
How to Add Daily Morning Prayer to Your Routine
One of the most popular times for personal prayer is first thing in the morning. However, adding daily morning prayer to your routine when you haven’t developed the habit yet can be a challenge. Here is how I did it: My Morning Routine (without Prayer) Before adding prayer to my morning routine, this is what…