Keeping a Summer Prayer Journal – Part 2
Last month, I wrote about how keeping a prayer journal can help you maintain a consistent prayer life during the laid-back – and sometimes inconsistent – season of summer. (I suggested journaling the Gospel, recording your prayer intentions, and tracking your prayer habits, but you can read about it in more depth here.)
If you started a summer prayer journal, here are three more pages you might want to add to deepen your prayer life (and if you haven’t started, it’s never too late!).
- Make and keep resolutions (put your prayer into action).
To St. Teresa of Avila, “the most potent and acceptable prayer is the prayer that leaves the best effects, and the best effects are those that are followed up by actions, when the soul not only desires the honour of God, but really strives for it.” One of the best ways I’ve found to put my prayer into action is by making a resolution from my daily Gospel reading. The resolution doesn’t have to be complicated or too ambitious – in fact, it’s better if it’s simple, concrete and relatively doable. Record your simple resolution every morning (like “Tomorrow morning I’ll get up and make coffee instead of lying in bed until my spouse makes it,” or “I’ll pray a decade of the rosary with my children”) and check it every night to see if you fulfilled it. If you didn’t, try again the next day.
- Focus on gratitude.
If you’ve ever kept a gratitude journal, you know that reflecting on those things throughout your day that you appreciated and for which you are grateful brings into focus the positive ways in which God is working in your life. Dedicate a section of your journal to gratitude, and spend a few minutes at the end of the day coming up with about five simple things for which you are thankful. As a challenge, try to list one negative thing that happened in your day, and seek to view it with gratitude, too (for example, “I am grateful for the argument I had with my daughter, because it brought to light an issue that God is calling me to accompany her through”).
- Make space for silence.
“God speaks in the silence of the heart,” said St. Teresa of Calcutta. “Listening is the beginning of prayer.” Sometimes when I’m establishing or re-establishing my daily prayer journaling habit, I jump right in, ready to read and write and record, without taking time to first quiet my thoughts and heart. Starting my prayer with a minute or two of silence helps me remember that my prayer journal is not my own personal project, but a tool to grow in trust and surrender to God. On one page of your journal, copy down your favourite quote on silence (you’ll find a few below), and turn to that page first, before you even open your Bible, or pick up your pen.
Here are a few quotes to inspire you to make space in your prayer life – and your prayer journal – for silence:
“God speaks in silence, and silence alone seems able to express Him.” (Father Marie-Eugėne de l’Enfant Jésus)
“Nothing will make us discover God better than His silence.” (Cardinal Robert Sarah)
“Interior noise makes it impossible to welcome anyone or anything.” (Pope Francis)
“Unless God finds the soul solitary, empty, and longing for His love, there is nothing He can do.” (St. Teresa of Avila)
“Silence is a sword in the spiritual struggle. God works in the silent soul without hindrance.” (St. Faustina)
 |
Holly Gustafson lives with her husband, James, and their five children, in Regina, where they attend Christ the King Parish. Holly received her Masters in Linguistics at the University of Manitoba, and now pursues her love of language through art, writing, public speaking, and unsolicited grammatical advice. The best advice she ever received was from her spiritual friend, St. Faustina, who told her that when in doubt, “Always ask Love. It advises best.” |
