Prayer/Spiritual Life

When I started The Year of Me, my goals for my Prayer/Spiritual life were:

• Resume spiritual direction and monthly confession
• Daily Mass 1x/week
• Reintroduce my morning prayer routine when Dorothy has more of a schedule (Saying a Morning Offering before my feet hit the floor and listening to the daily readings while I nurse/pump/eat breakfast via the USCCB website is where I am for now, and that’s a-okay!)

I’m pleased to report that I resumed spiritual direction and monthly confession over the summer.  Game.  Changer.  There’s something so powerful about having the same confessor month after month.  It’s been great to clear the spiritual cobwebs away and feel like I’m ready to keep fighting the good fight again.  I continue to make progress in this area, but progress in the spiritual life stuff is tricky.  Once you realize you’re making progress, you become aware of your shortcomings in a lot of areas.  My spiritual director describes this like a window in the sunlight.  When the light is shining on it (in other words, when you’re getting closer to God), it’s easier to see that one dirty handprint on the clean window than it would be if the whole window were filthy.  All of my imperfections become more glaringly obvious with each meeting we have.  This is a very good thing, and I’m glad to have a good and holy priest helping me to work through my personal struggles.  One day at a time!

My second goal was go go to daily Mass at least once a week.  We succeeded in going probably 4 or 5 times in addition to Sunday Mass over the summer, but it never became a habit because of the interruptions in our summer schedule.  One week we’d have a camp that started early in the morning, another week someone would get sick, another week we’d have an appointment, blah, blah, blah.  Now that the school year has started, I’m still looking for a Mass time that will work with school drop-off and Dorothy’s morning nap.  It may not be in the cards for this fall, and that’s okay.  This just might not be the chapter for me to get to go to daily Mass.

Another goal was to reintroduce my morning prayer routine.  I like to say the Morning Offering before my feet hit the floor.  Do you know this prayer?  It’s one of my favorites.  There are a lot of different versions.  Mine goes like this:

Oh, my Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day.  Through all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart, in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for all my sins, for the intentions of my relatives and friends, and for the intentions of the Holy Father.  Amen.  

When I’m eating my breakfast and pumping, I read the daily readings from Magnificat  before jumping on the treadmill.  I recently joined a women’s Bible study, so I plan to start incorporating my study into my morning prayer time as well.  We’re doing Keeping in Balance from the Walking With Purpose series.

Cover art from Keeping in Balance (Image from the Walking with Purpose website.)

Going forward, my goals are to:

• Continue monthly meetings with my spiritual director for confession and spiritual direction
• Create an abridged examination of conscience for the evenings that I can commit to doing nightly

Questions for You:

What’s your prayer/spiritual life looking like these days?  How are you making time for this essential?  Do you have any favorite prayers or devotions?  Are you a journal-er?  Do you go to a holy hour?  Are you like me and struggle to get your brain to quiet down?  Any tips on listening in prayer?  Share away, friends!