2024: Year of Prayer before Jubilee Year

Did you know that Pope Francis declared this the Year of Prayer? It is a prelude to next year’s Jubilee Year of Hope. At the Chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on March 28, he stressed the importance of rediscovering our need “to cultivate prayer that is not obligatory and functional, but freely chosen, tranquil […]

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 […]

Walking 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 […]

Pray 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 […]

Short 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 […]

Mantras 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 […]