Because prayer is such an important part of a Catholic teacher/catechist’s life, I had this idea that maybe we could all share a little bit about what prayer means to us, and how we actually pray. By answering a few questions about prayer, we could offer each other encouragement and inspiration to enrich our own prayer lives. I’ll go first, and I invite all Catholic teachers and catechists who blog to answer the same five questions and link back here so I can find your post. I promise to link to all your articles in an upcoming post as a sort of hub for our thoughts and reflections. If you don’t blog, feel free to leave your answers in a comment.
Here are the five questions, along with my answers. I look forward to reading your own.
1. When do you like to pray and why?
I like to get up around 5:30 am to pray, but I often hit the snooze button and usually end up actually getting out of bed by 6:00. I like to pray while the rest of my family sleeps. It’s my one-on-one time with God, and we can have an uninterrupted conversation. The dark and quiet of the morning helps me to be more of a listener than a talker, though it’s sometimes hard to stay awake. Praying in the morning also helps prepare me for the day and orients me toward doing God’s will.
2. When it comes to personal prayer, how do you pray and what do find fruitful about praying that way?
I’ve been praying Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours since about 1995, and I love its rhythm and pace. Morning Prayer helps me begin the day by praising God, and takes me out of my selfish needs so that I can offer prayers for the whole world.
After Morning Prayer I spend time meditating on the readings for the coming weekend Mass. I used to try and meditate on the daily Mass readings, but I found that praying with the Sunday readings over the course of the entire week gives me the opportunity to really ruminate over them. Usually a word or phrase will really speak to me and I will try to carry it with me throughout the entire day.
3. What’s one thing you would like improve upon in your prayer life?
I would really like to be more faithful to an evening examen in the Ignatian tradition. Looking back over the day with the help of the Holy Spirit to discover where God was at work in my day is a grace that I always appreciate. I just find it difficult to get into a regular pattern in the evening, so prayer often gets pushed aside. I also need to make more time to pray with my wife and kids.
4. How has your personal prayer life positively impacted your teaching?
The biggest impact it’s had on me is that I am more peaceful, content and grounded. Rather than feeling like a pinball ricocheting from bumper to bumper, I find myself moving deliberately through life with mission and purpose. Even on busy days, being aware of God’s presence in my life puts everything in perspective. My students benefit by having a (reasonably) sane, spiritually healthy teacher with first-hand experience of prayer.
5. Recommend one book on prayer to other catechists/teachers:
Prayer Primer: Igniting a Fire Within by Fr. Thomas Dubay – While this may not be the book that has had the most influence on my prayer life (that book is probably This Tremendous Lover by Eugene Boylan), the late Fr. Dubay’s book is an excellent introduction to living a life of prayer. It covers most of the major forms of Christian prayer in a practical, accessible manner that keeps me coming back to it again and again.
One of the biggest challenges we face as Catholic educators is helping students accept others who are different. Students get teased because of speech impediments, disinterest in sports, physical disabilities, sexual orientation, economic background, and even for succeeding in school. As hard as we work to prevent it from happening, teasing and bullying still exist.
