Prayer Experience Idea

Dedicating time for prayer daily, has always been a priority in my life. I am aware of the importance of recollecting the fruits of the day, thanking Jesus for what I experienced and asking Him for strength for to face the following day.

“I found myself trapped within the same circle of prayer”

Unfortunately, however, I found myself trapped within the same circle of prayer: the same ideas, the same vocabulary, the same line of thought. Thanking Jesus became a ritualistic formality instead of a heartfelt prayer of gratitude. Therefore, lately I was praying about how to pray. I told God that I am running out of ideas about how I should pray. I was afraid that prayer was becoming another task in my To Do List which I had to check out to make sure that the deeds of my day would be accomplished.

God hears our prayer. After a week of praying to pray better, the session of the spiritual community I attend to was about ‘My Prayer Life’. We all voiced our concerns regarding our prayer time.  A friend within the community disclosed my same concern about praying for the same things in the same way. She suggested the following site which guides your prayer time through a short reflection, an extract from the Scripture and other resources which help your prayer be more meaningful and fruitful. I found it useful.

http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-spiritual-exercises/an-ignatian-prayer-adventure

“from working my prayers to letting myself be worked upon.”

During the mentioned session of our spiritual community, a point which came out was our general concern about not praying well, our need to give Jesus a good prayer daily. The following reflection (which I found in the abovementioned link) put me in the proper frame of mind:

Prayer has far more to do with what God wants to do in us than with our trying to “reach or “realize, still less “entertain, God in prayer. This truth eliminates anxiety and concern as to the success or non-success of our prayer, for we can be quite certain that, if we want to pray and give the time to prayer, God is always successful and that is what matters. . . . What we think of as our search for God is, in reality, a response to the divine Lover drawing us to himself. There is never a moment when divine Love is not at work. . . . our part is to let ourselves be loved, let ourselves be given to, let ourselves be worked upon by this great God and made capable of total union with Him.

 Happy Prayer Time! =)

Sarah