My Prayer Routine

I recently wrote about the importance of prayer. In this post, I want to share some more thoughts about prayer and my personal prayer routine so that it may help you and so that you can help me improve it!

Rote and Spontaneous Prayers

Depending on circumstances, I’ll make what I consider to be rote prayer, or I’ll make a spontaneous prayer. 

Rote Prayers

Rote prayers are the Catholic prayers I learned as a child, such as:

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father
Who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into tempatation
But deliver us from evil
Amen

The Hail Mary

Hail Mary
Full of Grace
The Lord is with Thee
Blessed art Thou amongst women
And blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now, and at the hour of our death
Amen

Glory Be

Glory Be to the Father, 
To the Son, 
and to the Holy Spirit
As it was in the beginning
Is now
And ever shall be
World without end
Amen

Prayer to Saint Michael

Saint Michael, the Archangel
Defend us in battle
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray
And do thou, oh prince of the heavenly hosts
By the power of God
Thrust into Hell Satan and all evil spirits
Who prowl about the world
Seeking the ruin of souls
Amen

Prayer of Supper

Bless us, O Lord
And these, thy gifts
Which we are about to receive
From Thy bounty, through Christ Our Lord
Amen

I’ve said these prayers so many times that I can go on autopilot while praying them. And there is a real danger in so doing.

The Danger of Praying on Autopilot

In The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis describes how demons want to diminish our understanding of the connection prayer gives us to God.

In letter four, “Uncle Screwtape” instructs his demon nephew, "Wormwood," on the perceptual limitations of humans regarding God :

The humans do not start from that direct perception of Him which we, unhappily, cannot avoid. They have never known that ghastly luminosity, that stabbing and searing glare which makes the background of permanent pain to our lives. If you look into your patient’s mind when he is praying, you will not find that. […] you will find that it is a composite object containing many quite ridiculous ingredients. There will be images […] as He appeared during the […] Incarnation: there will be vaguer—perhaps quite savage and puerile—images associated with the other two Persons.

Screwtape highlights how humans actually focus their prayer devotions—to ineffectual images of the Lord or to inanimate or otherwise inappropriate objects:

There will even be some of his own reverence (and of bodily sensations accompanying it) objectified and attributed to the object revered. I have known cases where what the patient called his “God” was actually located—up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling, or inside his own head, or in a crucifix on the wall.

And this is the danger I’m describing. Praying on autopilot robs God of His majesty and increases our natural tendency towards complacency when Praying to Him. We can be lulled into thinking this magnificent activity is just another chore or task, like walking the dog or doing the dishes.

Screwtape continues:

But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it—to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him. […]

For if he ever comes to make the distinction, if ever he consciously directs his prayers “Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be”, our situation is, for the moment, desperate.

[…]if […] the man trusts himself to the completely real, external, invisible Presence, there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it-why, then it is that the incalculable may occur.

Excerpts From
The Screwtape Letters
C. S. Lewis
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-screwtape-letters/id1507632443

How powerful is this? “It is then that the incalculable may occur” is a sublime description of the true power of prayer.

Not Autopilot. What then?

You may be wondering, “If there is a danger of straying into autopilot mode when praying these rote prayers, how should we approach or use them?” I’ve found the best answer is to use rote prayers as a means to gently ease into mindfulness and awareness during prayer, and I think this supports Lewis’ implied wisdom. We should “consciously direct” our prayers to the God who made us and trust in His real Presence during our prayers. It is nigh impossible to do this if we aren’t well practiced in prayer, so we need a gentle introduction to the effort, and I’ve found that using one or more rote prayers is the best way to achieve the calm, attentive mindset—and the humility—needed to approach the Lord.

As I paraphrased before, as CS Lewis implies in Screwtape letter four, and as the Catechism explicitly  states in paragraph 2559: “Humility is the foundation of prayer.”

Thank Offering

I think it is also possible to offer up a rote prayer as a simple thanksgiving offering to God. “Thank you, Lord, here is my best rendition of the prayer You taught your apostles. Our Father…”

Spontaneous Prayers

This category involves any prayer that isn’t a rote prayer. It is, therefore, the larger of the two and has more freedom of form. The sky is the limit with spontaneous prayers, but I would offer the following guidance.

Judah Leads

First, start with humility and thanksgiving. “Judah goes first” or “Judah leads the way” as Fr. Mike Schmitz often says in the Bible in a Year podcast (Judah meaning “Praise” or “Thanksgiving”). I always start a spontaneous prayer along the lines of

Father in Heaven, thank you for _____

Immediately after this, I pray

All praise, glory, and honor are yours, now and forever

Which is a line familiar with anyone who’s been to a few Catholic Masses. I pray in this way to acknowledge God’s primacy, but also to subtly renounce pride. It is a reminder  that I am an unnecessary creation of the Almighty.  

This ensures I always have a beginning appropriate (I hope!) for my communing with the Lord. It sets the stage  for the rest of my conversation, especially since I almost always make requests of God.

Requests

“Almost” is superfluous. I always make a request of God: I petition Him for the health and safety of my family, especially my children. This is often the primary and only request in my prayers, but there are times when I ask Him other things.

I try prefacing my requests with  If it is Your will. This is not something I’ve always done, and didn’t think to do when I was younger (and definitely not as I was going through my apostasy). But this is another reminder that I am communing with God Almighty, and I don’t deserve anything from Him. All that I have has been granted me via His blessings. I believe He wants me to be happy and prosperous, but as a father myself, I know there are things my children ask me for that seem obvious to them that I withhold for their own benefit.

My Daily Routine

I thus try to follow this routine throughout the day, being mindful of the perils of "autopilot" praying and having a framework to prevent ad-libbing my spontaneous prayers:

I strive to pray first thing when I wake up. I’ll offer an Our Father and then ask God for His guidance throughout my day. I’ve historically done this while in bed, but then I run the risk of falling asleep. Since we have a young puppy learning to be potty trained, I’ll often delay this first prayer until I can sit down at my desk, an hour or 90 minutes after I’m up out of bed.

I then try to pray frequently throughout the day. These are typically small prayers of thanksgiving for God’s abundant blessings, or petitions for wisdom or guidance to navigate decisions. These most often take the form of brief Thank Offerings, though the more I practice, the more I want to devote the requisite time to say an appropriate prayer.

At night, to calm my mind before sleep, I will offer a routine set of prayers. Kneeling at my bedside, I start with humility, offering a Glory Be to acknowledge the primacy of the Lord. Next is a prayer to defend against evil with the Saint Michael prayer. 

The next section of prayer is my longest: I offer a Hail Mary, one for each individual or group I’m praying for. There is a minimum of five, as I always pray for my immediate family, but this number often is much higher, as I pray for my Mother, Father, and Brother, my relatives and deceased relatives, friends, neighbors, and anyone I have an interest in at the moment.

Once these are concluded, I try to finish my meditative prayers strongly by offering the Fatima Prayer, Our Father, and a simple “Jesus, I trust in You!”

Then, my typical spontaneous prayer:

Father in Heaven, thank you for your many blessings. All praise, honor, and glory are yours, now and forever. Please continue to protect my family: please keep us safe and healthy. In Jesus’ name, Amen

Conclusion

And there’s my prayer routine. I would love to hear about yours! If you feel comfortable, please share yours in the comments below, or start a conversation with me at getunlockd@chrislockard.net.