Perhaps you should find someone to pray with?
Firstly, my family members aren't religious. Secondly, my problem is that either I do not have the time to pray (because I take care of Granny all the time and the little break I do get I take a nap for 30 minutes), or by the time I put Granny to bed, I am too mentally tired to pray.
Well, one thing we Catholics also frequently forget, is that we can pray, in a sense, by our whole lives, not just with our words.
When we are doing our duty, if we do it because we know it is pleasing to God, and we mean it as an act of loving service to Him, then we are basically "praying" by our whole lives. We may not have much time for vocal prayers or deep meditations, but every human act can be done with love for God, as long as it is good.
The practice or habit of doing this... raising our minds and hearts to God in our very duties and those things that could otherwise separate us from Him... we are uniting ourselves to Him in a practical and loving way. Moreover, because we train ourselves to think of our daily duties and chores as things we do for Christ rather than just family or ourselves,
that mindset also effects WHAT we do... what kind of job we are doing in our duties.A person, for example, who is a writer, and writes to enjoy or excite themselves, or others only, is subject to no end of temptations to resort to impure or violent things in their work, because, as the world and the flesh tell them "they're exciting". Not only in terms of what is done or said in the work, but even in the narrative, by the way and tone in which things are presented, these sick and sinful things creep in. But to the person who writes to excite themselves or others, they easily convince themselves almost anything is acceptable, so long as it accomplishes that (being "exciting"), because they mistakenly believe this is the only way to produce interesting and captivating work that will be read. (A devilish lie if ever there was one.)
But the person who writes for God, out of a sense of love and duty to God, who knows and recognizes their talent comes from Him, and must be used for Him, and who reminds themselves that they must answer for where they lead minds, hearts and souls by their work, will take the time to learn where the dangers in their work are, and diligently fight to avoid them. They will be always keeping an eye out for dangerous things that have crept in, and will not spare their work or personal feelings, in order to cut out all that is dangerous, for the sake of God and souls. By doing so, not only will they perfect their work MORALLY, but also even artistically, technically, etc... because morality and sanctity train the mind in countless ways we do not normally think or notice, and will teach it to find good and more perfect ways of accomplishing things.
If a child wants to know how to do something, a GOOD child will watch it's parents, and try to do as they do. A bad-mannered, or self-willed child, will probably just try to figure it out themselves, no matter what kind of disaster they make of things doing it, and then stubbornly insist that their way (however obviously bad or wrong) is right.
If I want to know how to do something well, I must look at my heavenly parents, Jesus and Mary. If I live for them, then they (and the saints) become my pattern in EVERYTHING. In this way, so long as I adhere to living this way, and to whatever degree I succeed, all that I do will be directed by the highest virtue and insight (of God and the saints). If I do everything for myself, or just because I have to, without thinking about it or without including God in the picture, I am sure to do it badly, as my flesh, temptations, impatience and imperfections all get in the way, and destroy and corrupt whatever I am trying to do.
This example is the difference between living for God... praying by our lives... and living as the atheists and agnostics do, simply doing duty for duty's sake, or at best for their own sake.
This is ALSO at the heart of the tragedy of "Sunday Catholicism". How can people seriously think that the only time God can be in their lives, or cares what they do, or should be obeyed, is on Sunday, when they "have time for Him," and that on Monday-Saturday, that's the "REAL world" or "REAL life", which has got little or nothing (they say) to do with God?
The fact is, EVERY INSTANT OF OUR EXISTENCE, from conception to eternity, concerns God, God's laws and our willingness to cooperate with Him and His plan for us. If we think that being Catholic means ONLY the sacraments, the Ten Commandments and the rosary, and nothing else, we have already, in our minds and hearts, "dethroned" our Divine King from the rest of our life that we have decided "has nothing to do with Him". But by recognizing that every instant we live, we are in His sight, must obey His law, and can do every human act, however trivial, for the love of Him, we not only fulfill what is meant by "serving Him," but in fact we live for Him, in Him, with Him... He and our thoughts of Him sanctify our lives and our work, give us strength and patience where we would otherwise have none, and make us mindful of pitfalls that wait for us in our daily lives if we try to live without Him.
If we want do everything for Him (or at least intend to generally and sincerely), then we also must strive to remind ourselves that work need not be something that takes us away from Him, but that rather by doing it FOR Him, and out of love for Him in particular, we will draw far closer to Him than we will by hasty rosaries between godless living.
Prayer is important, but having the spirit of God and the saints in our lives is in a sense even more important. Prayer quickly becomes poor and shoddy when we have no real love of God in our hearts, or we never think of Him outside of that 15 minutes when we say our vocal prayers.
But our prayers will be much better if we live united in this way to God, doing everything for the love of Him. We must grow and cultivate that love in our hearts, training our hearts and minds to turn to Him habitually (it's hard to do at first!), and our flesh to be subject to the spirit of the love of God... that is, training our flesh to submit to inconvenience, pain, sacrifice, etc., in order to accomplish our duties well for the love of God.
But just like a person waking from a coma may have atrophied muscles, and cannot begin by getting out of bed and running a marathon, neither can we acquire this way of life overnight, or from one moment to the next. We must firstly want it, make up our minds to pursue it, and then, day by day, in the doing of our daily duties, learn how to actually do it. Learn, in the midst of frustration and exhaustion to turn our thoughts even momentarily to God and remember that it is all for the love of Him, and in reparation for our sins. We must start small, and build up these good habits, until, one day, our minds naturally and habitually think that way without any more strenuous conscious effort on our part.
Topic: Mel Gibson's classless Un-Catholic behavior continues... (Read 1750 times)