Tag: prayer

• The Necessity of Recollection

  If left to my own devices, I act with so much impulsiveness and distraction. I find myself acting or speaking without any awareness or focus. My mind is somewhere else while my mouth and my body seemingly act on their own. How can I possibly ever expect to live a prayerful life and have a peaceful, still soul to allow Christ to remain in, if I do not control the smallest action or thought? How can I allow myself to be so impulsive?

  Recollection is the solution to this and is recommended everywhere I read. Fr Jean Croiset speaks about the necessity of this recollection in the Devotion to the Sacred Heart . Thomas a Kempis, too, speaks of this inner quiet and control in his Solitude and Silence and Imitation of Christ, and it is listed as a necessary step to success in mental prayer in Vital Lehody’s Way of Mental Prayer, although there it is called “purity of mind”.

  This recollection means I must pause before and after every action. It means I must make a check on all my faculties–my imagination, my will, my desires, my thoughts, my speech, and my body in order to ensure that they are doing what they ought.

  I must make sure my will is what God wills–that I seek to fulfill His commands in all things and am always ready to abandon my plans when needed.

  I must make sure my imagination is in strict control, bringing it back when it wanders, and only producing images that inspire devotion and love for God.

  I must make sure that my speech is little and carefully chosen–that it does not offend God but rather builds up, encourages, comforts, instructs, admonishes gently, and prays.

  I must make sure that my body is moving with care and gentleness, as how I picture Christ doing so during His quiet years of labor before His ministry. I must make sure I complete every act with prayerful intention, offering every movement–of every finger, of every step, of every breath–so that my body may be a “living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1, USCCB).

  That is what I will do today. I will seek with all my efforts to live in a continuous state of recollection, bringing myself back whenver I fail and even using those failures as a blessing–a reminder of my natural condition and tendencies when left without God’s help.

  Oh my good and patient God! Help me to persevere today in this desire, so that I may, with your assistance, prepare a resting place for Christ in my soul. Help me so I may prepare myself to love Him purely and completely, with nothing else distracting me from Him. Do it for Your glory, not for mine. Amen.

  St. Teresa of Avila, pray for me. Foster father of Jesus, St. Joseph, pray for me. Amen.

  2026.06.15

• Protecting Prayer to Overcome All Sin

  General Goal: Eradicate all form of sin from my life.

  Particular Goal: Protect my meditation and prayer times in a manner that is sustainable and reasonable to my state of life.

  Considerations:

  • The purpose of my life is to love God and to serve Him (Baltimore Catechism I Lesson 1. Q.6). I do this by ordering my life according to His will, obeying all His commands, and rooting out the smallest of sins or vices from my soul.
  • Meditation is essential to identifying and hating sin in my life while prayer is essential in receiving the graces to overcome them. Neglecting this means I will never overcome my venial sins and will likely backslide into a state of spiritual lukewarmness or even worse–mortal sin.
  • In order to ensure I meditate and pray regularly, I must identify and address anything (within my control) that takes away from the time needed to meditate and pray. In other words, I must protect the times to pray at all costs, while still fulfilling my duties towards my husband, children, and others that have a reasonable right to my time.
  • I must expect and accept the fact the trouble, discomforts, and disappointments that dedication to prayer might bring me. I must be okay with leaving early from family gatherings and receive complaints from them, heading to be earlier on movie nights though my husband asks me for another episode, and so on. I must also prevent myself from earnestly desiring or anticipating any of these fun, innocent activities so that I don’t become too attached and feel tempted to forego my resolutions. The more I hold them in my mind, the more “good” I see in them and the harder it will be to set them aside when I need to. I must avoid Eve’s mistake in beholding the forbidden fruit for too long: “The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes” (Genesis 3:6)
  • I must be OK with unexpected interruptions or with pausing my reserved times if it’s for the sake of charity: tending to my children when they have a fever or a stomach bug, an extra special occasion like a wedding that requires me to stay up later than usual, an unexpected guest during rosary time, etc. I should not allow temptations of scrupulosity or over-zealousness cause anxiety or frustration within myself, since these works are in themselves good, pleasing, and obedient to God

  Resolutions:

  • Identify the prayer times I am most likely to miss/have missed most often and plan the activities around that time extra carefully. I should make sure the children are busy with a quiet activity and that other tasks are scheduled in such a way that leaves me free to focus fully on prayer. Notify my husband of this so he knows it’s coming and that it doesn’t interfere with his plans
  • Set aside weekend bedtimes that let me stay up a little later than usual to spend quality time with my husband but still permit enough time in the morning for meditation and prayer. Notify him before date nights or movie nights begin and set a timer 30 minutes or 15 minutes before in order to mentally prepare and not delay when it’s time to wrap up the evening.
  • When going to family parties or other gatherings, keep the bedtime in mind and plan to leave with enough time to prep for bed (the children too), to fall asleep, and then still have enough time to wake up for prayer. Again, visualize the negative reactions this might cause so as to expect them and be OK with the disapproval/disappointment others will feel. If my husband objects and decides to stay, then it is no longer my responsibility and I am not the cause of any missed prayer times. I would, after all, be fulfilling another God-given duty: to submit to my husband as the head of the family (Ephesians 5:22)

  My God, please help me to detach from the simple pleasures of this life, especially from those I get from my spouse and our other friends and family. As much as I love them and enjoy their company, I do not wish them to become an obstacle to my devotion towards You. Help me keep the words of my Lord in mind so as to give me strength during those moments of temptation:

  “And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19:29)

  Mother of Good Counsel, pray for me. St. Joseph, pray for me. Glory be to God forever. Amen.

  2026.03.19