Posts Tagged ‘mantras’
When Your Prayer Life Is Stuck
Last week I reread my book “Praying on Empty.” You might find some thoughts from it helpful—if not now, sometime later… My God, grant that I may love you, and grant that the only reward of my love will be to love you always more and more. A priest advised a man who couldn’t pray…
Read MoreWalking Prayers
I’ve just read a book about walking prayers: The Complete Guide to Prayer-Walking by Linus Mundy. In a previous post, I wrote about walking a labyrinth, but this is different, and you don’t need a labyrinth to do it. It has an added benefit to prayers said kneeling in a pew or sitting in a…
Read MorePray Always and Pray All Ways
At first glance St. Paul’s exhortation to pray always (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18) seems to be a mistranslation. Maybe what he really said was, “Pray a lot.” Praying ALWAYS is a mental impossibility. When I’m writing a book, for instance, my mind is 100% focused on the ideas I’m typing, not on God. The only way…
Read MoreShort Prayers for Everyday Spirituality
When I entered the convent, a custom prompted us to think of God all day long. Every hour a bell rang over the PA, and we prayed a lengthy ” hour prayer.” This is no longer done, and it has never been done in regular homes as far as I know. Yet, we are still…
Read MoreMantras like the Jesus Prayer: Default Prayers
In an operating room awaiting surgery, I found myself praying, “Even though I walk through the valley of death, you are with me!” After I came to I kept repeating, “The Lord is my shepherd” all night. In the morning I remarked to a nurse that the machine next to my bed that sounded like…
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