Yesterday, I shared that I’m revisiting our Family’s Rule of Life (inspired by Holly Pierlot’s book A Mother’s Rule of Life).  If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read yesterday’s post.  I explained what a “Rule of Life” is, discussed my vocation (Child of God, wife, mother) and its essential duties, shared our family’s mission statement, and set myself up to dive into the “5 P’s.”

The 5 P’s are:

1. Prayer
2. Person
3. Partner
4. Parent
5. Provider

Today, let’s look at the 1st P: Prayer

I’m a very visual learner, and I love schedules, so reading how Holly Pierlot laid out her prayer routine in A Mother’s Rule of Life was very helpful.  Thanks be to God, my prayer life continues to deepen and change since I first wrote about it last February, so I wanted to revisit things in the blog.

What hasn’t changed is the necessity of routinizing our days.  Without a schedule, my prayer life flounders.  As Holly Pierlot says, “God isn’t so obviously urgent, because he doesn’t pester us for our attention like our children or a sloppy house can.”  I followed Holly’s advice to come up with a list of all of the different prayers/practices that I want to comprise my spiritual life.  As I’m writing this, that means:

• My personal daily prayers (More on my personal routine below)
• Family evening prayer (Share intentions, teach the children a new prayer each month, and our standard bedtime prayers – Guardian Angel prayer, and say “God bless ______” every member of the family)
• Couple prayer before bed (Read a reflection on a mystery of the Rosary and pray one decade together followed by spontaneous prayer and intentions)
• Shared holy hour (Philip and I alternate attending a shared holy hour once a week)
• Mass (Every Sunday and a goal of starting 2x/month with the kids to daily Mass)
• Confession once a month during my “Mother’s Sabbath” on Saturday afternoons
• Finding a spiritual director (by the end of this month) and starting monthly meetings

After making the list, Holly says we have to find pockets of time for those things before everything else.  Otherwise, they’ll get relegated away to the things that seem more “obviously urgent.”  So, I set about finding regular, dependable pockets of time when I could have my personal prayer, we could come together as a family, and Philip and I could pray together as a couple.  Routinizing our prayer lives has helped us to stay on track.  Today, I thought I’d dive a little deeper into my personal prayer routine to give you an idea of what it looks like.  I’m mainly focusing on my morning, afternoon, and evening prayers, but know that we have family prayer and couple prayer mixed in there throughout the day.

Morning Prayer

I love how I’ve been starting my days.  I set my alarm to 5:45 so that I can get up and have some dedicated quiet prayer time before my day starts.  There is no way I would be successful at having my quiet prayer time if I didn’t have Philip.  We’ve been working on “training” Jane and Walt (our preschoolers) to stay in their rooms until 6:30.  (More on the morning routine and how we juggle everything in a future post on our schedule.)  Philip helps to keep things reasonably quiet and starts breakfast on the days that he’s not going to the gym.  Meanwhile, I retreat downstairs.

First, the coffee.  Morning prayer demands coffee, and my coffee demands a whole lotta delicious creamer.

Then, I find my morning prayer materials:

• Prayer journal
• Pen
• Bible

My prayer journal is a simple, lined leather-bound journal that I bought last year at Walmart.

When I came up with this new prayer routine, I decided to add a few things to my journal to personalize it.  I thought it would be helpful if I typed up and included my prayer routine on the inside front cover.  This way, I would have it handy as I memorized when I would include the various practices during the day.

Opposite my prayer routine is a typed-up version of the Morning Offering.

I simply printed off the docs and taped them inside of my journal.

With my materials ready to go, I close my eyes.  I start by asking God to help me quiet my mind, I ask Him to open my ears and soften my heart.  Then, I start by journaling my little conversations with God.  After saying “hello,” I open up to the daily readings.  Then, I might find a corresponding passage from the Catechism, read a Gospel reflection, or journal whatever God is putting on my heart.  Afterward, I’ll choose a vice to tackle for the day and think of a penance for every time I fail.  I’ll review my daily schedule, asking God to sanctify our day.  Then, I’ll close with a Morning Offering.

Kid Naptime

During the kids’ naps (and Jane’s quiet time), I give myself more flexibility and choose from a variety of things:

• Consider my progress in tackling the virtue I want to work on, renew my desire to change
• Read my current spiritual reading material (usually something written by a member of my Board of Spiritual Directors or something about my vocation)
• Read a psalm
• Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet

On the inside back cover of my prayer journal is a typed-up version of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.  I like to listen to some beautiful versions of the chaplet being sung on Spotify.  Do you have a favorite version to share?

Bedtime

After Philip and I have our couple prayer time and I drift off to sleep, I like to review the hours of the day and do an examination of conscience.  I close by praying the Act of Contrition, and I add my other favorite prayers (Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Memorare, St. Michael).  I like to do my formal examination of conscience on Saturdays during my “Mother’s Sabbath.”

Questions for you:

What does your prayer life look like these days?  Have you found a routine that’s working for you?  What is helping you to stick with it?  If not, what are the obstacles?

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Tomorrow, we’ll take a little break from our Family’s Rule of Life for a fun post.  I’ll pick up next time with the 2nd P, Person.