Many of us will get excited about praying on a daily basis and might even boldly proclaim that we will pray every morning for an hour.
However, after the first day our enthusiasm may waver and then by the third day, we begin to forget to pray.
Life can get busy and while we may want to pray every day, our will may not be as strong as we imagined.
What should we do?
A saint’s advice
St. Francis de Sales recognized this situation in his Introduction to the Devout Life and encouraged lay people to not give up.
The first key is to pray as soon as we are able:
If it should happen that your morning goes by without the usual meditation, either owing to a pressure of business, or from any other cause, (which interruptions you should try to prevent as far as possible), try to repair the loss in the afternoon.
Basically, once you remember, make an intentional effort to pray at the next available moment.
St. Francis de Sales also provides a somewhat humorous, though also practical, piece of advice: Don’t pray immediately after a meal:
[B]ut not immediately after a meal, or you will perhaps be drowsy, which is bad both for your meditation and your health.
He recognized our human tendencies and suggests that we pick a time when we won’t fall asleep during our prayers.
Again, the main key is to pray as soon as you are able, but also to make a firm resolution to pray the next day:
But if you are unable all day to make up for the omission, you must remedy it as far as may be by ejaculatory prayer, and by reading some spiritual book, together with an act of penitence for the neglect, together with a stedfast resolution to do better the next day.
If you frequently forget to pray, don’t fall into despair and abandon your prayer life.
Instead, let God pick you up and always try again. We may not be perfect, but we can always strive for better.
And today we celebrate...